Mrs. Jameson seemed to be really very affable.  She spoke cordially to us all, and then asked to have some work given her; but, as it happened, there was nothing cut out except a black dress for the missionary’s wife, and she did not like to strain her eyes working on black.

“Let me cut something out,” said she in her brisk manner; “I have come here to be useful.  What is there needing to be cut out?”

It was Flora Clark who replied, and I always suspected her of a motive in it, for she had heard about her jumbles by that time.  She said there was a little pair of gingham trousers needed for the missionary’s five-year-old boy, and Mrs. Jameson, without a quiver of hesitation, asked for the gingham and scissors.  I believe she would have undertaken a suit for the missionary with the same alacrity.

Mrs. Jameson was given another little pair of trousers, a size smaller than those required, for a pattern, a piece of blue and white gingham and the shears, and she began.  We all watched her furtively, but she went slashing away with as much confidence as if she had served an apprenticeship with a tailor in her youth.  We began to think that possibly she knew better how to cut out trousers than we did.  Mrs. White whispered to me that she had heard that many of those rich city women learned how to do everything in case they lost their money, and she thought it was so sensible.

When Mrs. Jameson had finished cutting out the trousers, which was in a very short space of time, she asked for some thread and a needle, and Flora Clark started to get some, and got thereby an excuse to examine the trousers.  She looked at them, and held them up so we all could see, and then she spoke.

“Mrs. Jameson,” said she, “these are cut just alike back and front, and they are large enough for a boy of twelve.”  She spoke very clearly and decisively.  Flora Clark never minces matters.

We fairly shivered with terror as to what would come next, and poor Mrs. White clutched my arm hard.  “Oh,” she whispered, “I am so sorry she spoke so.”

But Mrs. Jameson was not so easily put down.  She replied very coolly and sweetly, and apparently without the slightest resentment, that she had made them so on purpose, so that the boy would not outgrow them, and she always thought it better to have the back and front cut alike; the trousers could then be worn either way, and would last much longer.

To our horror, Flora Clark spoke again.  “I guess you are right about their lasting,” said she; “I shouldn’t think those trousers would wear out any faster on a five-year-old boy than they would on a pair of tongs.  They certainly won’t touch him anywhere.”

Mrs. Jameson only smiled in her calmly superior way at that, and we concluded that she must be good-tempered.  As for Flora, she said nothing more, and we all felt much relieved.

Mrs. Jameson went to sewing on the trousers with the same confidence with which she had cut them out; but I must say we had a little more doubt about her skill.  She sewed with incredible swiftness; I did not time her exactly, but it did not seem to me that she was more than an hour in making those trousers.  I know the meeting began at two o’clock, and it was not more than half-past three when she announced that they were done.