“If I had only the foundation, but I haven’t that, or the trimming, either; nothing but this old, tumbled chiffon and these faded flowers.”

Mrs. Briarley looked dejectedly at the mass of frippery in her lap. Five dollars for a new hat such as she wanted would leave only one dollar from her own private purse for the Easter collection, and the sermon last Sunday had been a plea for religious enthusiasm in giving at this season.

Mrs. Briarley was a fair, pretty little thing, although slight almost to meagreness in her immaturity of outline. She was foolishly young to be the wife of a man of thirty and the mother of a two-year-old child.

In spite of this she had an earnest soul, and pondered deeply over each perplexing question of her married life as it arose. The mere fact of having to decide anything enveloped her in a sort of confusion which obscured every guide-post which experience had erected, the more so that, as her husband travelled, she could not have recourse to him. It was as if each occasion had been evolved[210] whole from space to have its merits decided upon, whether it were a question of little Emily’s going out to play in the damp, or the quantity of material for a new skirt, or which kind of breakfast food to order.

Just now it was the question of the hat. There was indeed no question as to whether she needed it or not, but her husband’s means kept her within certain limits.

To make a whole hat would cost very nearly five dollars; if other people did it for less, she wasn’t able to. And Mr. Beatoun, the clergyman, had said that he wanted to make an appeal to each one personally. Each one must judge for himself if he were doing all he could to pay off that debt on the church for which he urged the special effort now.

To Mrs. Briarley the question seemed to have relation to those deep places of decision which govern the current of one’s life. If she refused this appeal she would not be quite what the mother of Emily ought to be.

She was painfully anxious that Emily should have every advantage. She herself had been a neglected orphan, brought up in helter-skelter fashion, and she longed above all things that her baby should have the maternal ideal she had lacked. She was glad that Mr. Beatoun’s sermon had come after she had bought little Emily’s hat, for[211] she felt secretly that no appeal could have been strong enough to have denied that sweet white ribbon and the daisies to her child.

“If I had any trimming that could be used!” she murmured for the third time, and turned as the servant came into the room. “What is it, Ellen?”

“There’s a lady down-stairs, ma’am—Mrs. Stebbins.”

“Oh, Mrs. Stebbins!” Mrs. Briarley’s tone was one of doubtful welcome.

This was one of the ladies of the parish in which Mrs. Briarley was a newcomer, and in which she still felt herself wistfully an outsider, in spite of the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Beatoun had formally called upon her, and Mrs. Stebbins had conscientiously shaken hands with her at the church door.

But Mrs. Stebbins had also once come to collect, and to collect now, in addition to an appeal, would be futile as far as Mrs. Briarley was concerned.

She nerved herself to meet the words that followed after the first greetings were over.

“I want to know if you won’t give something to our church sale.”

“The church sale? Oh, no, I—I don’t think I care to be connected with anything[212] of the kind—at least—I mean, this year,” said Mrs. Briarley, hurriedly.

The last time she had taken part in a fair, before moving to this place, her sympathy had run unwarrantably ahead of her purse. She had indulged in that specious form of charity which consists of buying goods on credit and then presenting them to the church. She had a vivid remembrance of a box of soap which another woman had bought for half price at the fair, “because it was given, and whatever was made on it was clear gain.”

Mrs. Briarley had had to pay the full price at the grocer’s a month later, when the bill was already too large. Her husband had not liked it, and she felt wary of fairs.

“A fair! Oh, no, indeed, this isn’t a fair!” Mrs. Stebbins, a sallow, greyish, compactly solid lady in a short walking-skirt and a small, tight hat, smiled intelligently at her hostess. “It’s a sale—a rummage sale. I’m surprised that you haven’t heard of it; it’s been in progress two weeks already. Of course, though, you don’t belong to the Guild. There are only three days more for the sale, and we do want them to be a success. The proceeds go to the church debt. A rummage sale—you know what that is. You send any old things you have—anything; it doesn’t[213] make any difference what it is, and we sell them to the poor for a few cents. We hired an empty store at the other end of the town—64 Herkimer Street. Some of our ladies take charge of it in turn.”

“And do you sell much?” asked Mrs. Briarley.

Mrs. Stebbins laughed. “Do we sell much? We have made fifteen hundred dollars already. You know it’s really an accommodation to the poor—many of them will buy things when they wouldn’t beg for them. They get good warm clothing and stores for a song. And quite a number of us pick up odds and ends there—really! You don’t know what fascinating things we take in now and then; nobody knows where half of them come from. Some of them are quite new. There was a lovely jacket sent in last week; Mr. Stebbins’s sister said she would have bought it herself—she doesn’t live here—if the sleeves had been a little longer. And there was a white satin lambrequin, embroidered in gold thread,—one end had oil spilled over it,—and Minnie Ware bought it for a quarter, and she’s made the most fetching collar and vest front that you ever saw. Of course, Minnie Ware can do anything—she doesn’t care a snap who knows. Have you met Miss Ware? She belongs to the Guild.”

[214]

“No,” said Mrs. Briarley, with the pang of the outsider.

“Well, I bought a colonial chair myself there yesterday; there’s a rung gone, but it can easily be put in. You will send something, won’t you? Some of our ladies are in charge from nine until six.”

“Why, I’ll try to,” said Mrs. Briarley, hesitatingly. “We got rid of most of our rubbish when we moved here. Is Mrs. Beatoun at the sale?”

She had a reverential admiration for the rector’s wife, as a person who in that position must be superhumanly good. She longed to know her as other people did. She had been sensitively quick to feel the alteration from the conventional politeness of Mrs. Beatoun’s manner to her to the intimate interchange of laughing remarks with a party of friends afterwards. Mrs. Briarley had indeed been asked to join the Guild, but she could not get up her courage to face so many strangers alone.

“No, Mrs. Beatoun will not be at the sale to-day,” said Mrs. Stebbins, rising to go. “I’ve just come from the rectory now. She had such a pleasant surprise—the present of a lovely hat from her cousin. She had to go into mourning for her mother-in-law, and so she sent this hat to Mrs. Beatoun, it was[215] made in Paris, and I don’t believe it was ever worn more than twice. It’s a perfect beauty!”

“That must have been very nice,” said Mrs. Briarley, with the thought of the hat for which she longed.

“Well, I should think so! To get a hat like that without paying a cent! And if ever anybody needed one it was Mrs. Beatoun. She’s worn that old black straw for five years; but after all, you’d hardly know it. She’s got that sort of an air about her—almost too much for a clergyman’s wife, some people think—that makes you feel as if she was dressed up when she isn’t. Is this your little girl?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Briarley, with the tremulous flush that always came into her cheek when little, dark-curled, lustrous-eyed Emily suddenly appeared in her dainty white frock and little slippers. She looked at her visitor with an expression which said, “Did you ever see anything as beautiful as this?”

But Mrs. Stebbins only remarked, “She favours her papa, doesn’t she? I don’t see much resemblance to you,” patted the child’s head, shook hands with Mrs. Briarley, and was gone, with a parting injunction not to forget the rummage sale.

Mrs. Briarley knelt down on the floor by Emily that she might gather the plump little[216] standing form more fully into her thin young arms. She loved and respected her husband greatly, but her humble soul magnified the Lord daily for this wonder and joy of being the mother of Emily. She had a way of pressing the little soft cheek to hers, as now, and saying, “Baby dear,” in a tone of ineffable love, that at once embodied her bliss and a prayer that she might be worthy of it. When she left the child now she knew that there was only one path to choose. She must go without her hat. She must respond to the appeal.

She thought of it all the time she was selecting her slender dole of rubbish for the sale—a vase that had been mended and a couple of books. As she was walking to Herkimer Street she imagined herself in a ninety-eight-cent, ready-trimmed straw turban. One could hardly realize how earnestly solemn the sacrifice was to her.

Dress was a very serious matter. She had a natural daintiness, a touch that was almost genius. It was a feminine charm which even her husband recognized, and she liked to see him like to look at her. Perhaps he would not now. If she could only have a hat given her, like fortunate Mrs. Beatoun!

The window of the temporary shop was filled with a heterogeneous mass of clothing,[217] before which stood a group of hatless women and a few children. Mrs. Briarley nervously pushed her way past them, for she was always afraid of contagion on account of Emily. She became still more nervous on her entrance into the shop.

It was filled with a swarm of Italian women, bright-shawled, earringed, swarthy and voluble, fingering the piles of cast-off clothing and chaffering over them. The air was bad, and the two young girls behind the counter looked singularly helpless and distracted. One was sitting down with her head upon her hand, but the other responded to Mrs. Briarley’s proffer of her gifts.

“Oh, yes—thank you! Would you please put the price on them yourself? Here are tags and a pencil. Mark them anything. I can’t leave this corner for a minute. I never was in such a place! I really don’t know what to do. The young lady who was waiting here—Miss Morley—fainted a few minutes ago,—it’s the air, you know, and the window won’t open,—and Mrs. Whitaker has just taken her home. They say she’s the second one that’s fainted to-day.”

“How dreadful!” said Mrs. Briarley, with admiring pity. These were indeed martyrs to the cause.

“Isn’t it? Mrs. Whitaker just asked me to[218] come in and stay with Gladys till she got back, and now Gladys has such a headache she isn’t............