“Well, I do declare, Miss Scudder beats us all in her table-cloths,” she said, taking up a corner of the damask, admiringly; and Mrs. Jones forthwith jumped up and seized the other corner.

“Why, this ’ere must have come from the Old Country.  It’s ’most the beautiflest thing I ever did see.”

“It’s my own spinning,” replied Mrs. Katy, with conscious dignity.  “There was an Irish weaver came to Newport the year before I was married, who wove beautifully,—­just the Old-Country patterns,—­and I’d been spinning some uncommonly fine flax then.  I remember Mr. Scudder used to read to me while I was spinning,”—­and Aunt Katy looked afar, as one whose thoughts are in the past, and dropped out the last words with a little sigh, unconsciously, as to herself.

“Well, now, I must say,” said Mrs. Jones, “this goes quite beyond me.  I thought I could spin some; but I sha’n’t never dare to show mine.”

“I’m sure, Mrs. Jones, your towels that you had out bleaching, this spring, were wonderful,” said Aunt Katy.  “But I don’t pretend to do much now,” she continued, straightening her trim figure.  “I’m getting old, you know; we must let the young folks take up these things.  Mary spins better now than I ever did.  Mary, hand out those napkins.”

And so Mary’s napkins passed from hand to hand.

“Well, well,” said Mrs. Twitchel to Mary, “it’s easy to see that your linen-chest will be pretty full by the time he comes along; won’t it, Miss Jones?”—­and Mrs. Twitchel looked pleasantly facetious, as elderly ladies generally do, when suggesting such possibilities to younger ones.

Mary was vexed to feel the blood boil up in her cheeks in a most unexpected and provoking way at the suggestion; whereat Mrs. Twitchel nodded knowingly at Mrs. Jones, and whispered something in a mysterious aside, to which plump Mrs. Jones answered,—­“Why, do tell! now I never!”

“It’s strange,” said Mrs. Twitchel, taking up her parable again, in such a plaintive tone that all knew something pathetic was coming, “what mistakes some folks will make, a-fetchin’ up girls.  Now there’s your Mary, Miss Scudder,—­why, there a’n’t nothin’ she can’t do; but law, I was down to Miss Skinner’s, last week, a-watchin’ with her, and re’lly it ’most broke my heart to see her.  Her mother was a most amazin’ smart woman; but she brought Suky up, for all the world, as if she’d been a wax doll, to be kept in the drawer,—­and sure enough, she was a pretty cretur,—­and now she’s married, what is she?  She ha’n’t no more idee how to take hold than nothin’.  The poor child means well enough, and she works so hard she most kills herself; but then she is in the suds from mornin’ till night,—­she’s one the sort whose work’s never done,—­and poor George Skinner’s clean discouraged.”

“There’s everything in knowing how,” said Mrs. Katy.  “Nobody ought to be always working; it’s a bad sign.  I tell Mary,—­’Always do up your work in the forenoon.’—­Girls must learn that.  I never work afternoons, after my dinner-dishes are got away; I never did and never would.”