come, for she depended on us young people to help make the affair less ceremonious.  Don’t you think, Emma wasn’t invited at all, and I don’t believe she will be; almost everyone has been now.  Emma was so sure of her invitation, because she was such a friend of Lu Jamison’s.  She thought she would get cards to the wedding, you know; and when they didn’t come she felt sure of the reception.  She has been holding her head wonderfully high all the week about it, and now she is left out and I am in.  Mother, isn’t that rich?”

Mrs. Brower plumped her chickens into the oven, and wiped the flour from her cheek and sighed.

“There will be no end of fuss in getting you ready, and expense too.  What are you going to wear, anyway?”

“Mother,” said Jennie, impressively, turning away from her squash to get a view of her mother’s face, “I ought to have a new dress for this party.  I haven’t anything fit to be seen.  It is months since I have had a new one; and everybody is sick of my old blue dress; I’m sure I am.”

“It is entirely out of the question,” Mrs. Brower said, irritably, “and you know it is.  I wonder at your even thinking of such a thing, and we so many bills to pay; and there’s that pew-rent hasn’t been paid in so long that I’m ashamed to go to church.”

“I wish the pew-rent was in Jericho, and the pew, too!” was Miss Jennie’s spirited answer.  “I should think churches ought to be free, if nothing else is.  It is a great religion, selling pews so high that poor people can’t go to church.  If I had thought I couldn’t have a new dress I should have declined the invitation at once.  I did think it was time for me to have something decent; and I make my own clothes, too, which is more than most any other girls do.  I saw a way to make it this morning.  I studied Miss Harvey’s dress all the while we were standing.  I could make trimming precisely like hers, and put it on and all.  I could do every thing to it but cut and fit it.”

“I tell you you haven’t anything to cut and fit, and can’t have.  What’s the use in talking?”

And in her annoyance and motherly bitterness at having to disappoint her daughter, Mrs. Brower let fall the glass jar she had been trying to open, and it opened suddenly, disgorging and mingling its contents with bits of glass on the kitchen floor.  Does anyone, having overheard thus much of the conversation, and having a fair knowledge of human nature, need to be told that there were sharp words, bitterly spoken, in that kitchen after that, and that presently the speech settled down into silence and gloom, and preparations for the Sunday dinner went on, with much slamming and banging, and quick nervous movements, that but increased the ferment within and the outside difficulties.  And yet this mother and daughter had been to church and heard that wonderful text, “Take heed what ye do; let the fear of the Lord be upon you.”  Had listened while it was explained and illustrated, going, you will remember, into the very kitchen for details.  They had heard that wonderful hymn: