“Twelve new embroidered cambric handkerchiefs,” repeated she, as she turned back from the stair-head, having seen Aunt Roderick down.

Barbara had once, in a severe fit of needle-industry, inspired by the discovery of two baby robes of linen cambric among mother’s old treasures, and their bestowal upon her, turned them into these elegances, broadly hemmed with the finest machine stitch, and marked with beautiful great B’s in the corners.  She showed them, in her pride, to Mrs. Roderick; and we knew afterward what her abstract report had been, in Grandfather Holabird’s hearing.  Grandfather Holabird knew we did without a good many things; but he had an impression of us, from instances like these, that we were seized with sudden spasms of recklessness at times, and rushed into French embroideries and sets of jewelry.  I believe he heard of mother’s one handsome black silk, every time she wore it upon semiannual occasions, until he would have said that Mrs. Stephen had a new fifty-dollar dress every six months.  This was one of our little family trials.

“I don’t think Mrs. Roderick does it on purpose,” Ruth would say.  “I think there are two things that make her talk in that way.  In the first place, she has got into the habit of carrying home all the news she can, and making it as big as possible, to amuse Mr. Holabird; and then she has to settle it over in her own mind, every once in a while, that things must be pretty comfortable amongst us, down here, after all.”

Ruth never dreamed of being satirical; it was a perfectly straightforward explanation; and it showed, she truly believed, two quite kind and considerate points in Aunt Roderick’s character.

After the party came back from the Isles of Shoals, Mrs. Van Alstyne went down to Newport.  The Marchbankses had other visitors,—­people whom we did not know, and in whose way we were not thrown; the haute volee was sufficient to itself again, and we lived on a piece of our own life once more.

“It’s rather nice to knit on straight,” said Barbara; “without any widening or narrowing or counting of stitches.  I like very well to come to a plain place.”

Rosamond never liked the plain places quite so much; but she accommodated herself beautifully, and was just as nice as she could be.  And the very best thing about Rose was, that she never put on anything, or left anything off, of her gentle ways and notions.  She would have been ready at any time for the most delicate fancy-pattern that could be woven upon her plain places.  That was one thing which mother taught us all.

“Your life will come to you; you need not run after it,” she would say, if we ever got restless and began to think there was no way out of the family hedge.  “Have everything in yourselves as it should be, and then you can take the chances as they arrive.”

“Only we needn’t put our bonnets on, and sit at the windows,” Barbara once replied.