Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/172

  “What’s she got to say?” inquired Mrs. Rumford hotly. “She never had a silk dress in the world, till Eben Packard married her, and everybody knows her father was a horse-doctor and mine was a reg’lar one!”

“She did n’t say anything about fathers, but she did tell Almira Berry that no member of the church in good standing could believe in signs as you did and have hope of salvation. She said I was a chip of the old block, and had been raised like a heathen. It seems when I was over there on Sunday I refused to stand up and have my height measured against the wall, and I told ’em if you measured heights on Sunday you’d like as not die before the year was out. I did n’t know then she had such a prejudice against signs, but since that time I’ve dragged ’em in every chance I got, just to spite her.”

“More fool you!” said her mother, beginning to move the dasher of the churn up and down with a steady motion. “You might have waited until she was your