Margaret Maliphant

								

soup-kitchens and clothing clubs; for mother was every bit as obstinate
as Miss Farnham, and being an old-fashioned woman, liked to do her
charity in a more personal fashion.
I looked with mingled awe and amusement upon their meeting to-night.
Miss Farnham had an aggressive sort of head-dress, with nodding
artificial flowers that seemed to look down scornfully upon mother's
old lace and soft frills. She had not seen me for some time, and when
mother introduced me as her youngest daughter, she took my hand firmly
in hers, and held it a while in her uncompromising grip while she
looked at me through and through.
"Well, I never saw such a thing in my life!" exclaimed she presently,
in a loud voice that attracted every one's attention.
I blushed. I was not given to blushing, but it was enough to make any
one blush. I thought, of course, that she was alluding to my attire, in
which I had felt so shy and awkward from the moment that I had entered
the ball-room, from the moment that I had felt the squire's glance rest
upon my neck and arms.
She dropped my hand.
"The very image of him," said she, turning to my mother.
"Yes, she is very like her father," agreed the mother.
"Why, my dear, the very image of him," repeated the aggravating
creature. "Got his temper too?" asked she, turning to me again.
"I don't know, ma'am, I'm sure," answered I, half amused, but still
more annoyed. "I dare say."
"Oh, I'll be bound you have, and proud of it too," declared she,
shaking her head emphatically. "Girls are always proud to be like their
fathers."
"I don't suppose it'll make any very particular difference who I'm
like," said I. "Things will happen just the same, I expect."
Miss Farnham laughed and patted me boisterously on the back.
I do not think she was an ill-natured woman, although she certainly had
the talent of making one feel very uncomfortable.
"Well, you're not so handsome as your sister," added she. "But I don't
know that you hadn't better thank your stars for that."
With that she turned away from me and sat down beside mother, arranging
her dress comfortably over her knees as though she meant to stay there
the whole evening.
The people kept coming fast now. The squire stood at the door shaking
hands as hard as he could. There was the old village doctor with his
pretty granddaughter, and the young village doctor who had inherited
the practice, and had just married a spry little wife in the hope of
making it more important.
And then there was the widow of an officer, who lived in a solid brick
house that stood at the corner of the village street, and had two sons
in the ship business in town. And there was the mild-eyed clergyman
with his delicate young wife, who had more than enough babies of her
own, and was only too thankful to leave the babies of the parish to
Miss Farnham or any one else who would mother them.
She was a sweet little woman, with a transparently white face and