"Sit down in that chair and see how easy it is," said Sophia, imperatively, to Mrs. Cutting, who obeyed meekly, although the crushed plush was so icy cold from its sojourn in the parlor that it seemed to embrace her with deadly arms and made her have visions of pneumonia.
"It's as easy a chair as I ever sat in," she said, rising hastily.
"Leave it out here and let her set in it while she is here," said Sophia; and Mrs. Cutting sank back into the chair, although she did ask for a little shawl for her shoulders.
Mrs. Cutting had always had a wholesome respect for her cousin Sophia Lane, although she had a certain feeling of superiority by reason of her wealth. Even while she looked about Sophia's poor little sitting-room and recalled her own fine parlors, she had a sense that Sophia was throned on such mental heights above mahogany and plush and tapestry that she could not touch her with a finger of petty scorn even if she wished.
After Flora had displayed her presents and carried them back to the parlor, she excused herself and went to the dressmaker's to try on her wedding-dress.
After Flora had gone out of the yard, looking abnormally stout with the gay plaid shawl over the coat and her head rolled in a thick old worsted hood of Sophia's, Mrs. Cutting opened on a subject about which she was exceedingly curious.
"I'm real sorry we can't have a glimpse of the wedding-dress," said she, ingratiatingly.
Sophia gave an odd sort of grunt in response. Sophia always gave utterance to that nondescript sound, which was neither assent nor dissent, but open to almost any interpretation, when she wished to evade a lie. She was in reality very glad that the wedding-dress was not on exhibition. She thought it much better that it should not be seen in its full glory until the wedding-day.
"Flora has got many good presents," said Sophia, "and few tomfool ones, thanks to me and what I did last Christmas."
"What do you mean, Sophia?" asked Mrs. Cutting.
"Didn't you hear what I did, Ellen Cutting?"
"No, I didn't hear a word about it."
"Well, I didn't know but somebody might have told. I wasn't a mite ashamed of it, and I ain't now. I'd do the same thing over again if it was necessary, but I guess it won't be; I guess they got a good lesson. I dare say they were kind of huffy at the time. I guess they got over it. They've all give Flora presents now, anyhow, except Angeline White, and I guess she will."
"Why, what did you do?" asked Abby Dodd, with round eyes of interest on Sophia.
"Why, I'd jest as soon tell you as not," replied Sophia. "I've got some cake in the oven. Jest let me take a peek at that first."
"Wedding-cake?" asked Eunice, as Sophia ran out of the room.
"Land, no!" she called back. "That was made six weeks ago. Weddin'-cake wouldn't be worth anything baked now."
"Eunice, didn't you know better than that?" cried her mother.
"It's white cake," Sophia's explanatory voice came from the kitchen, whence sweet odors floated into the room. The oven door opened and shut with an exceedingly swift click like a pistol-shot.
"I should think she'd make the cake fall, slamming the oven door like that," murmured Abby Dodd.
"So should I; but it won't," assented her mother. "I never knew Sophia to fail with her cake."
Sophia flew back into the sitting-room and plumped into her chair; she had, indeed, risen with such impetus and been so quick that the chair had not ceased rocking since she left it. "It's done," said she; "I took it out. I'll let it stand in the pan and steam a while before I do anything more with it. Now I'll toll you what I did about Flora's Christmas presents last year if you want me to. I'd jest as soon as not. If I hadn't done what I did, there wouldn't have been any weddin' this winter, I can tell you that."
"You don't say so!" cried Mrs. Cutting, and the others stared.
"No, there wouldn't. You know, Herbert and Flora have boon goin' together three years this December. Well, they'd have been goin' together three years more, and I don't know but they'd been goin' together till doomsday, if I hadn't
