Divers Women | Page 7

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:
"In vain my soul would try To shun thy presence, Lord, or flee The
notice of thine eye."

Both mother and daughter had their names enrolled on the church
record. They were at times earnest and anxious to feel sure that their
names were written in the book kept before the throne. Yet the
invitation to Mrs. Jamison's reception, informally whispered to the
daughter as she moved down the church aisle, had enveloped the rest of
their Sabbath in gloom. "Friend, how earnest thou in hither, not having
on the wedding garment?" It was a wedding reception to which Jennie
had been invited. Did neither mother nor daughter think of that other
wedding, and have a desire to be clothed in the right garment?

CHAPTER III.
SOME PEOPLE WHO FORGOT THE EVER-LISTENING EAR.
There were two other members of the Brower family who had attended
church that Sabbath morning. One was Mr. Brower, sen. And at the
season of dinner-getting he lay on the couch in the dining-room, with
the weekly paper in his hand, himself engaged in running down the
column of stock prices. He glanced up once, when the words in the
kitchen jarred roughly on his æsthetic ear, and said:
"Seems to me, if I were you, I would remember that to-day is Sunday,
and not be quite so sharp with my tongue."
Then his solemn duty done, he returned to his mental comparison of
prices. Also, there was Dwight Brower, a young fellow of nineteen or
so, who acted unaccountably. Instead of lounging around, according to
his usual custom, hovering between piazza and dining-room, whistling
softly, now and then turning over the pile of old magazines between
whiles, in search of something with which to pass away the time, he
passed through the hall on his return from church, and without
exchanging a word with anyone went directly to his room. Once there,
he turned the key in the lock, and then, as though that did not make him
feel quite enough alone, he slipped the little brass bolt under it, and
then began pacing the somewhat long and somewhat narrow floor. Up
and down, up and down, with measured step and perplexed, anxious

face, hands in his pockets, and his whole air one of abandonment to
more serious thought than boys of nineteen usually indulge.
What has happened to Dwight? Something that is not easily settled; for
as the chickens sputter in the oven below, and the water boils off the
potatoes, and the pudding is manufactured, and the cloud deepens and
glooms, he does not recover his free-and-easy air and manner. He
ceases his walk after a little, from sheer weariness, but he thrusts out
his arm and seizes a chair with the air of one who has not time to be
leisurely, and flings himself into it, and clasps his arms on the table,
and bends his head on his hands and thinks on.
The holy hours of the Sabbath afternoon waned. Mr. Brower exhausted
the stock column, read the record of deaths by way of doing a little
religious reading, tried a line or two of a religious poem and found it
too much for him, then rolled up a shawl for a sofa-pillow, put the
paper over his head to shield him from the October flies, and went to
sleep. Jennie went in and out setting the table, went to the cellar for
bread and cake and cream, went to the closet up-stairs for a glass of
jelly, went the entire round of weary steps necessary to