as I told you?"

Nance laboriously drew a back breadth of her coarse plaid skirt round
to the front, and displayed it, without a word. A three-cornered tear
of the kind known as a barn-door had been treated by tying a white
string well outside it, and gathering up the cloth, like a bag.
Dorcas's sense of fitness forbade her to see anything humorous in so
original a device. She stood before the woman in all the moral
excellence of a censor fastidiously clad.

"O Nancy Pete!" she exclaimed. "How could you?"

Nance put her cold pipe in her mouth, and began sucking at the
unresponsive stem.

"You 'ain't got a bite of anything t' eat, have ye?" she asked,
indifferently.

Dorcas went to the pantry, and brought forth pie, doughnuts and cheese,
and a dish of cold beans. The coffee-pot was waiting on the stove. One
would have said the visitor had been expected. Nance rose and tramped
over to the table. But Dorcas stood firmly in the way.

"No, Nancy, no! You wait a minute! Are you going to meeting to-day?"

"I 'ain't had a meal o' victuals for a week!" remarked Nance,
addressing no one in particular.

"Nancy, are you going to meeting?"