“Why, Lily Harrison!  I heard you tell her you thought her hat was lovely!” This from Lily’s youngest sister.

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Miss Lily.  “One must say something to people.  It wouldn’t do to tell her she looked horrid.”  And the mother laughed.

“It is a good thing for Mrs. Marsh that she holds her million in her own right,” observed cousin Jim.  “That husband of hers is getting a little too fast for comfort.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Harrison asked, looking up from his turkey bone.

“Yes, sir; his loss at cards was tremendously heavy last week; would have broken a less solid man.  He had been drinking when he played last, and made horridly flat moves.”

“Disgraceful!” murmured Mr. Harrison; and then he took another sip of his home-made wine.

There were homes representing this same church that were not so stylish, or fashionable, or wealthy.  Mrs. Brower and her daughter Jenny had to lay aside their best dresses, and all the array of Sunday toilet, which represented their very best, and repair to the kitchen to cook their own Sunday dinners.  “Was it a thoughtful dwelling upon such verses of Scripture as had been presented that morning which made the Sunday dinner the most elaborate, the most carefully prepared, and more general in its variety, than any other dinner in the week?  Their breakfast hour was late, and, by putting the dinner hour at half-past three, it gave them time to be elaborate, according to their definition of that word.  Not being cumbered with hired help, mother and daughter could have confidential Sabbath conversations with each other as they worked.  So while Mrs. Brower carefully washed and stuffed the two plump chickens, Jennie prepared squash, and turnip, and potatoes for cooking, planning meanwhile for the hot apple sauce, and a side dish or two for dessert, and the two talked.

“Well, did you get an invitation?” the mother asked, and the tone of suppressed motherly anxiety showed that the subject was one of importance.  Did she mean an invitation to the great feast which is to be held when they sit down to celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb, and which this holy Sabbath day was given to help one prepare for?  No, on second thought it could not have been that; for, after listening to the morning sermon no thought of anxiety could have mingled with that question.  Assuredly Jennie was invited—­nay, urged, entreated; the only point of Anxiety could have been—­would she accept?  But it was another place that filled the minds of both mother and daughter.

“Indeed I did.”  There was glee in Miss Jennie’s voice.  “I thought I wasn’t going to.  She went right by me and asked people right and left, never once looking at me.  But she came away back after she had gone into the hall, and came over to my seat and whispered that she had been looking for me all the way out, but had missed me.  She said I must be sure to