If any
of the damsels of Stockbridge who went to bed without their supper
Sunday night, because they couldn't remember the text of the sermon,
had been allowed to substitute an account of Desire Edwards' toilet,
it is certain they would not have missed an item. It was the chief
boast of Mercy Scott, the Stockbridge seamstress, that Desire trusted
her new gowns to her instead of sending to New York for them. From the
glow of pride and importance on Miss Mercy's rather dried-up features,
when Desire wore a new gown for the first time to church, it was
perfectly evident that she looked upon herself as the contributor of
the central feature of the day's services. At the quilting and apple
paring bees held about the time of such a new gown, Miss Mercy was the
center of interest, and no other gossip was started till she had
completed her confidences as to the material, cost, cut and fit of the
foreshadowed garment. It was with glistening eyes and fingers that forgot
their needles, that these wives and daughters of poor hard-working
farmers, drank in the details about rich eastern silks and fabrics of
gorgeous tints and airy textures, their own coarse, butternut homespun
quite forgotten in imagined splendors.
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