The Jamesons

l through April and May repairs and improvements had been going on in their house. Some time during the winter t

aw its bright walls through the budding trees we were somewhat surprised, but thought it might look rather pretty when we became accustomed to it. Very few of the neighbors agreed

gg one afternoon at the sewing circle. "What anybody can want anything a

her very best wishes for our improvement and the widening of our spheres, and made numerous suggestions which she judged calculated to advance us in those respects. She recommended selections from Robert Browning to be read at our meetings, and she sent us some copies of explanatory and critical essays to be used in connection with them. She also in March

is nothing whatever to treasure, held a council over the books. We all agreed that while we were interested in them ourselves, though they were

just as soon think of asking them to tea and giving them nothing but olives and Russian caviare, which, I understand, hardly anybody likes at first. I never tasted them myself. We know what the favorite diet of this village is; and as long as we can eat it ourselves it seems to me it is safer than to try something which we may like and every

t instead of Flora, bridled a little. "I suppose you think tha

a. "Sometimes it's longitude, and sometimes it's latitude that separates people. I

e books into the society, and we never read Mrs. Jameson's letter about them, though we did feel somewhat guilty, especially as we refl

o me, "if we were preventing the women of

ameson take the responsibility. I don't want to be t

, of improvement. She was not so active in our literary society and our sewing circle as she had been the summ

nd Grandma Cobb and the girls and Cobb looking out of the windows. Mrs. Jameson, being delicate, was, of course, leaning back, exhausted with her journey.

oardman Jameson might take it, and nobody dared go. Mrs. White said that she would have been glad to make some of her cream biscuits and send them over, b

before we saw Grandma Cobb coming up the road. We did not know whether she was goin

r part. It did not seem quite right for us to know how much Mrs. Jameson had paid her dressmaker for making her purple satin, and still less so for us to know that she had not paid for the making of her black lace net and the girls' organdy muslins, though she had

ere, and she had better save them up till next winter. Dress does make so m

herself in her pretty dresses to him. However, I was exceedingly glad to hear that she had cried, becaus

does not seem to find anybody," said she. "I suppose it is becau

us that night; our supper hour c

herwise. I tell my daughter I have got so far along in life without living on hygienic food, and I am not going to begin. I want to get a little comfort out of the taste of my victuals, and my digestion is as good as hers, in spite of all her fussing. For my part," c

, shadowy couple stroll past our house, and knew it was Harriet Jameson

o Caroline and to Mrs. J

be traitor to true love," said Louis

rly rampant in the field of improvement for our good, or rather the good of the village, for, as I said before

r with something like terror. Flora Clark said, when she heard that remark of Mrs. Jameson's, that she felt,

n cloth cut short enough to expose her ankles, which were, however, covered with brown gaiters made of cloth like her dress. She wore a shirt-waist of brown silk, and a little cutaway jacket. Mrs. Jameson looked as if she were attired for riding the wheel, but that was a for

rs. Jameson was very stout, and the short sk

isa and I did not know what to say. We did not wish to be untruthful and we disliked to be impolite. Finally

't have to hold it

aid Mrs. Jameson, "and I hope to have all the women

of our good, motherly, village faces, with their expressions of homely dignity and Christian decorousness, looking at us from under that jaunty

e street in that costume indicative of youthful tramps over long stretches of road, and mad spins on wheels, instead of her n

gaiters like Mrs. Jameson," said

ort," said I; "Mrs. Whi

dy else,"

fluence of Mrs. Jameson, who did cut off some of their old dresses and make themselves some leggings with hers for a pattern. After their housework was done they started off for long tramps with strides of independence and defiance, but they did not keep it up very long; none of them after Mr

innovation which fairly took our breaths away. She was going to beautify the village. We

age which is overgrown with vines," sai

ders, and also thought that they were bad for the paint. We poor, frugal village folk have always to consider whether be

paint!" said she. "I am going to have the houses of this villag

s around their houses without their permission, even

r permission," said I; but I wondere

re of that," said sh

itable. People actually did not know whether to be furious or amused at this liberty taken with their property. They saw with wonder Mrs. Jameson, with old Jonas following laden with vines and shovel, also the girls and Cobb, who had been pressed, however unwillingly, into service, tagging behind trai

t ye worry," old Jonas would say, with a sly grin; "ye know well enough that there won't a blamed on

He had had a steady, hard grind of existence, and was for the first time seeing the point of some of those jokes of life for which his natural temperament had given him a r

wholesale decoration of our village, to the planting of vines around ou

s Green's wheat-field, he expostulated in forcible terms, and threatened a suit for damages; and when she caused a small grove of promising young hemlocks to be removed from Eben Betts'

be trouble, when Louisa cam

ove," said she, "and is ever so pretty. The worst of it

ithout leave or license, as I suspect, Eben Betts w

s Martin somewhat for his share of this transaction, arguing that he ought not to have yielded to Mrs. Jameson in such a dishonest transaction, even in the name of philanthropy; but he d

ropping in for a neighborly call, of approaching any other. Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson resolved to do away with this state of things, and also with our sacred estimate of the best parlors, which were scarcely opened from one year's end to the other, and seemed redolent of past grief and joy, with no dilution by the every-day occurrences of life. Mrs. Jameson completely ignored the side door, marched boldly upon the front one, and compelled the mistress to open it to her resolute knocks. Once inside

dmitted the sunlight, with its fading influence, on the best carpet, and then proceeded down the street with the bearing of triumphant virtue. It was related t

ge village heart, and held sacred, as everything should be which is in

. Mrs. Jameson set herself to work to abolish this grimly pathetic New England custom with all her might. She did everything but actually tear them from our walls. That, even in her fiery zeal of improvement, she did not quite dare attempt. She made them a constant theme of conversation at sewing circle and during her neighborly calls. S

have one in her house-though every one of her relations were dead, and she might have her walls covered with them-but she believed in respecting those who did; and it seemed to her that, however much anybody felt called upon to interfer

lize, as she would do were her sphere wider, the incalculable harm that such a fa

shall do," returned Flora. She said afterward that she felt just like digging up some of

it might account for it in her case, but we were surprised that Caroline was so blinded. We both of us thought that she would be very much averse to the match, from her well-known opinion of the Jamesons; and it proved that she was. Everybody talked so much about Harry and his courtship of Harriet that it seemed

ening, and Louisa and I were sitting at the windows looking out and chatting peacefully. Little Alice had gone to bed, and we had not lit

t, if Mrs. Jameson is too wrapped up in her own affairs an

erward that it was so. Grandma Cobb had known all the time, and Harriet had gone

hen a stout, tall figure went hurriedly b

is Mrs. Jameso

if to protect his sweetheart. Mrs. Jameson kept turning and addressing him; we could hear the angry clearness of her voice, though we could not distinguish many words; and finally, when they were almost past we saw poor Harriet also turn to him, and

and I echoed her. I did p

was not long before we saw Mrs. Jameson hu

he lamp, and I set the rock

as she said that she did drop into the rocking-chair. Louisa said afterward that Mrs. Jameson was o

uperiority so shaken; it actually seemed as if she realized for on

Louisa and I were nonplussed. We did not know what to say. Luckily, Mrs. Jameson did not wait for an answer; she wen

consideration of the fact that we were a village family. "My daughter has been very differently brought

listening with more of dismay than sympathy, wh

; she opened the door with no wa

st have. I could not command my voi

d-evening," and placed Alice's little chair, in whic

atter. "I have just been over to your house," said she, "and they told me that you had come over here. I want to say someth

only gasped. Finally she spoke. "You can be no more unwilling to have your

know what you have against my son, as fine a young man as

cted. "I should like to inquire what y

Caroline; "she doesn't know enough to keep

She and Caroline glared at each other a minute; then to our great relief, for no one wants her house turned into the s

ch shaken, and that she felt it sad that all her efforts for the welfare and improvement

ugh I did reflect guiltily how I had asked the lovers into my house that October night. Louisa and I a