The Dulham Ladies

"The Dulham Ladies" is a short story by Sarah Orne Jewett that explores the lives of women in a small coastal town in New England. Through the lens of the titular ladies, Jewett examines themes of friendship, community, and the intricacies of social interaction among women. The narrative highlights the strength and resilience of the characters as they navigate their relationships and the challenges of their environment. With her signature lyrical prose, Jewett captures the essence of rural life and the bonds that unite the women of Dulham, showcasing both their joys and struggles.

• Short story

								
To be leaders of society in the town of Dulham was as satisfactory to
Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda Dobin as if Dulham were London itself. Of
late years, though they would not allow themselves to suspect such
treason, the most ill-bred of the younger people in the village made fun
of them behind their backs, and laughed at their treasured summer
mantillas, their mincing steps, and the shape of their parasols.

They were always conscious of the fact that they were the daughters of a
once eminent Dulham minister; but beside this unanswerable claim to the
respect of the First Parish, they were aware that their mother’s social
position was one of superior altitude. Madam Dobin’s grandmother was a
Greenaple of Boston. In her younger days she had often visited her
relatives, the Greenaples and Hightrees, and in seasons of festivity she
could relate to a select and properly excited audience her delightful
experiences of town life. Nothing could be finer than her account of
having taken tea at Governor Clovenfoot’s, on Beacon Street, in company
with an English lord, who was indulging himself in a brief vacation from
his arduous duties at the Court of St. James.

“He exclaimed that he had seldom seen in England so beautiful and
intelligent a company of ladies,” Madam Dobin would always say in
conclusion. “He was decorated with the blue ribbon of the Knights of the
Garter.” Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda thought for many years that this
famous blue ribbon was tied about the noble gentleman’s leg. One day
they even discussed the question openly; Miss Dobin placing the
decoration at his knee, and Miss Lucinda locating it much lower down,
according to the length of the short gray socks with which she was
familiar.

“You have no imagination, Lucinda,” the elder sister replied
impatiently. “Of course, those were the days of small-clothes and long
silk stockings!”—whereat Miss Lucinda was rebuked, but not persuaded.

“I wish that my dear girls could have the outlook upon society which
fell to my portion,” Madam Dobin sighed, after she had set these
ignorant minds to rights, and enriched them by communicating the final
truth about the blue ribbon. “I must not chide you for the absence of
opportunities, but if our cousin Harriet Greenaple were only living, you
would not lack enjoyment or social education.”

Madam Dobin had now been dead a great many years. She seemed an elderly
woman to her daughters some time before she left them; they thought
later that she had really died comparatively young, since their own
years had come to equal the record of hers. When they visited her tall
white tombstone in the orderly Dulham burying-ground, it was a strange
thought to both the daughters that they were older women than their
mother had been when she died. To be sure, it was the fashion to appear
older in her day,—they could remember the sober effect of really
youthful married persons in cap and frisette; but, whether they owed it
to the changed times or to their own qualities, they felt no older
themselves than ever they had. Beside upholding the ministerial dignity
of their father, they were obliged to give a lenient sanction to the
ways of the world for their mother’s sake; and they combined the two
duties with reverence and impartiality.

Madam Dobin was, in her prime, a walking example of refinement and
courtesy. If she erred in any way, it was by keeping too strict watch
and rule over her small kingdom. She acted with great dignity in all
matters of social administration and etiquette, but, while it must be
owned that the parishioners felt a sense of freedom for a time after her
death, in their later years they praised and valued her more and more,
and often lamented her generously and sincerely.

Several of her distinguished relatives attended Madam Dobin’s funeral,
which was long considered the most dignified and elegant pageant of that
sort which had ever taken place in Dulham. It seemed to mark the close
of a famous epoch in Dulham history, and it was increasingly difficult
forever afterward to keep the tone of society up to the old standard.
Somehow, the distinguished relatives had one by one disappeared, though
they all had excellent reasons for the discontinuance of their visits. A
few had left this world altogether, and the family circle of the
Greenaples and Hightrees was greatly reduced in circumference.
Sometimes, in summer, a stray connection drifted Dulham-ward, and was
displayed to the townspeople (not to say paraded) by the gratified
hostesses. It was a disappointment if the guest could not be persuaded
to remain over Sunday and appear at church. When household antiquities
became fashionable, the ladies remarked upon a surprising interest in
their corner cupboard and best chairs, and some distant relatives
revived their almost forgotten custom of paying a summer visit to
Dulham. They were not long in finding out with what desperate affection
Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda clung to their mother’s wedding china and
other inheritances, and were allowed to depart without a single teacup.
One graceless descendant of the Hightrees prowled from garret to cellar,
and admired the household belongings diligently, but she was not asked
to accept even the dislocated cherry-wood footstool that she had
discovered in the far corner of the parsonage pew.

Some of the Dulham friends had always suspected that Madam Dobin made a
social misstep when she chose the Reverend Edward Dobin for her husband.
She was no longer young when she married, and though she had gone
through the wood and picked up a crooked stick at last, it made a great
difference that her stick possessed an ecclesiastical bark. The Reverend
Edward was, moreover, a respectable graduate of Harvard College, and to
a woman of her standards a clergyman was by no means insignificant. It
was impossible not to respect his office, at any rate, and she must have
treated him with proper veneration for the sake of that, if for no other
reason, though his early advantages had been insufficient, and he was
quite insensible to the claims of the Greenaple pedigree, and preferred
an Indian pudding to pie crust that was, without exaggeration, half a
quarter high. The delicacy of Madam Dobin’s touch and preference in
everything, from hymns to cookery, was quite lost upon this respected
preacher, yet he was not without pride or complete confidence in his own
decisions.

The Reverend Mr. Dobin was never very enlightening in his discourses,
and was providentially stopped short by a stroke of paralysis in the
middle of his clerical career. He lived on and on through many dreary
years, but his children never accepted the fact that he was a tyrant,
and served him humbly and patiently. He fell at last into a condition of
great incapacity and chronic trembling, but was able for nearly a
quarter of a century to be carried to the meeting-house from time to
time to pronounce farewell discourses. On high days of the church he was
always placed in the pulpit, and held up his shaking hands when the

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