Flora Clark said in a very loud voice, and Mrs. White could not hush her, that she would see Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson in Gibraltar first; and she was so indignant because Mrs. White began to put kindlings into the stove that she stalked off into the other room.  Mrs. White begged me to follow her and try to keep her quiet, but I was so indignant myself that I was almost tempted to wish she would speak out her mind.  I ran out and filled the tea-kettle, telling Mrs. White that I guessed Flora wouldn’t say anything, and we started the fire.

It was a quarter of seven before the water was hot, and we asked the ladies to walk out to supper.  Luckily, the gentlemen were not coming that night.  It was haying-time, and we had decided, since we held the meeting principally because of the extra work, that we would not have them.  We often think that the younger women don’t do as much work when the gentlemen are coming; they are upstairs so long curling their hair and prinking.

I wondered if Flora Clark had said anything.  I heard afterward that she had not, but I saw at once that she was endeavoring to wreak a little revenge upon Mrs. Jameson.  By a series of very skilfull and scarcely perceptible manoeuvres she gently impelled Mrs. Jameson, without her being aware of it, into the seat directly in front of the stove.  I knew it was not befitting my age and Christian character, but I was glad to see her there.  The heat that night was something terrific, and the fire in the stove, although we had made no more than we could help, had increased it decidedly.  I thought that Mrs. Jameson, between the stove at her back and the hot water in her health food, would have her just deserts.  It did seem as if she must be some degrees warmer than any of the rest of us.

However, who thought to inflict just deserts upon her reckoned without Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson.  She began stirring the health food, which she had brought, in her cup of hot water; but suddenly she looked around, saw the stove at her back, and sweetly asked Mrs. White if she could not have another seat, as the heat was very apt to affect her head.

It was Harriet, after all, upon whom the punishment for her mother’s thoughtlessness fell.  She jumped up at once, and eagerly volunteered to change seats with her.

“Indeed, my place is quite cool, mamma,” she said.  So Mrs. Jameson and her daughter exchanged places; and I did not dare look at Flora Clark.

Though the kitchen was so hot, I think we all felt that we had reason to be thankful that Mrs. Jameson did not beseech us to eat health food as she did at the picnic, and also that the reading was over for that day.

Louisa, when we were going home that night, said she supposed that Mrs. Jameson would try to improve our literary society also; and she was proved to be right in her supposition at the very next meeting.  Mrs. Jameson came, and she not only read selections from Browning, but she started us in that mad problem of Shakespeare and Bacon.  Most of the ladies in our society had not an intimate acquaintance with either, having had, if the truth were told, their minds too fully occupied with such humble domestic questions of identity as whether Johnny or Tommy stole the sugar.