appropriate.  However, I suppose that she was not to blame, poor child, and it may easily be more embarrassing to have old fine clothes than old poor ones.  Really, Harriet Jameson would have looked better dressed that day in an old calico gown than the old silk one which she wore.  Her waist was blue silk with some limp chiffon at the neck and sleeves, and her skirt was old brown silk all frayed at the bottom and very shiny.  There were a good many spots on it, too, and some mud stains, though it had not rained for two weeks.

However, the girl looked pretty, and her hair was done with a stylish air, and she wore her old Leghorn hat, with its wreath of faded French flowers, in a way which was really beyond our girls.

And as for Harry Liscom, it was plain enough to be seen that, aside from his discomfiture at the close attendance of Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson, he was blissfully satisfied and admiring.  I was rather sorry to see it on his account, though I had nothing against the girl.  I think, on general principles, that it is better usually for a young man of our village to marry one of his own sort; that he has a better chance of contentment and happiness.  However, in this case it seemed quite likely that there would be no chance of married happiness at all.  It did not look probable that Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson would smile upon her eldest daughter’s marriage with the son of “a good woman,” and I was not quite sure as to what Caroline Liscom would say.

Mr. Jacob Liscom is a pleasant-faced, mild-eyed man, very tall and slender.  He lifted out the Jameson boy, who did not jump out over the wheel, as boys generally do when arriving at a picnic, and then he tipped over the front seat and helped out Madam Cobb, and the younger daughter, whose name was Sarah.  We had not thought much of such old-fashioned names as Harriet and Sarah for some years past in our village, and it seemed rather odd taste in these city people.  We considered Hattie and Sadie much prettier.  Generally the Harriets and Sarahs endured only in the seclusion of the family Bible and the baptismal records.  Quite a number of the ladies had met Mrs. Jameson, having either called at Mrs. Liscom’s and seen her there, or having spoken to her at church; and as for Grandma Cobb, she had had time to visit nearly every house in the village, as I knew, though she had not been to mine.  Grandma Cobb got out, all smiling, and Jacob Liscom handed her the box of peppermints and the paper-covered novel, and then Harry Liscom helped out Harriet and her mother.

Mrs. Jameson walked straight up to us who were laying the table, and Harry followed her with a curiously abashed expression, carrying a great tin cracker-box in one hand and a large basket in the other.  We said good-morning as politely as we knew how to Mrs. Jameson, and she returned it with a brisk air which rather took our breaths away, it was so indicative of urgent and very pressing business.  Then, to