“The day of rest is the hardest day of the week for her.

“But she told me last night—­she come in to get my bask pattern, she is anxious to get her parmetty dress done for the World’s Fair—­but she said that she shouldn’t go if it wuz open Sunday, for her mind wuz so sot on havin’ the Sabbath kep strict as a day of rest.

“Now I believe in goin’ to meetin’ as much as anybody, and always have been regular.  But I say Jane hain’t consistent.” (They don’t agree.)

Arvilly stopped here a minute for needed breath.  Good land!  I should have thought she would; and Lophemia Pegrum spoke up—­she is a dretful pretty girl, but very sentimental and romantic, and talks out of poetry books.  Sez she: 

“Another thought:  Nature works all the Sabbath day.  Flowers bloom, their sweet perfume wafts abroad, bees gather the honey from their fragrant blossoms, the dews fall, the clouds sail on, the sun lights and warms the World, the grass grows, the grain ripens, the fruit gathers the sunshine in its golden and rosy globes, the birds sing, the trees rustle, the wind blows, the stars rise and set, the tide comes in and goes out, the waves wash the beach, and carries the great ships to their havens—­in fact, Nature keeps her World’s Fair open every day of the week just alike.”

“Yes,” sez Miss Eben Sanders—­she is always on the side of the last speaker—­she hain’t to be depended on, in argument.  But she speaks quite well, and is a middlin’ good woman, and kind-hearted.  Sez she—­

“Look at the poor people who work hard all the week and who can’t spend the time week days to go to this immense educational school.

“Them who have to work hard and steady every working day to keep bread in the hands of their families, to keep starvation away from themselves and children—­clerks, seamstresses, mechanics, milliners, typewriters, workers in factories, and shops, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.

“Children of toil, who bend their weary frames over their toilsome, oncongenial labor all the week, with the wolves of Cold and Hunger a-prowlin’ round ’em, ready to devour them and their children if they stop their labor for one day out of the six—­

“Think what it would be for these tired-out, beauty-starved white slaves to have one day out of the seven to feast their eyes and their hungry souls on the best of the World.

“What an outlook it would give their work-blinded eyes!  What a blessed change it would make in all their dull, narrow, cramped lives!  While their hands wuz full of work, their quickened fancy would live over again the too brief hours they spent in communion with the World’s best—­the gathered beauty and greatness and glory of the earth.  Whatever their toil and weariness, they had lived for a few hours, their eyes had beheld the glory of God in His works.”

Miss Cork yawned very deep here, and Miss Sanders blushed and stopped.  They hain’t on speakin’ terms.  Caused by hens.