that we were a talkin' -- and sez she, "It seems to me, Josiah
Allen's wife, that you are too old to wear low-necked dresses and
short sleeves."

"And I should think you'd take cold a goin' bareheaded," sez Miss
Luman Spink who wuz with her.

Sez I, lookin' at 'em coldly, "Are you lunys or has softness begun
on your brains?"

"Why," sez they, "you are talking about goin' to Saratoga, hain't
you?"

"Yes," sez I.

"Well then you have got to wear 'em," says Miss Bobbet. "They
don't let anybody inside of the incorporation without they have
got on a low-necked dress and short sleeves."

"And bare-headed," sez Miss Spink; "if they have' got a thing on
their heads they won't let 'em in."

Sez I, "I don't believe it"

Sez Miss Bobbet, "It is so, for I hearn it, and hearn it straight.
James Robbets's wife's sister had a second cousin who lived
neighbor to a woman whose niece had been there, been right there
on the spot. And Celestine Bobbet, Uncle Ephraim's Celestine,
hearn it from James'es wife when she wuz up there last spring, it
come straight. They all have to go in low necks."