On Saturday afternoon the parson's wife called on old Mrs. Jennings. The
sweet, gentle young lady in her black silk dress, her pink cheeks, and
smooth waves of golden hair gleaming through her worked lace veil
entered the north room, which was the parlor, and sat down in the
rocking-chair. Ann Lizy and her grandmother sat opposite, and they both
noticed at the same moment that the parson's wife held in her hand--_the
bead bag_!
Ann Lizy gave a little involuntary "oh;" her grandmother shook her head
fiercely at her, and the parson's wife noticed nothing. She went on
talking about the pinks out in the yard, in her lovely low voice.
As soon as she could, old Mrs. Jennings excused herself and beckoned Ann
Lizy to follow her out of the room. Then, while she was arranging a
square of pound-cake and a little glass of elderberry wine on a tray,
she charged Ann Lizy to say nothing about the bead bag to the parson's
wife. "Mind you act as if you didn't see it," said she; "don't sit there
lookin' at it that way."
"But it's your bead bag, grandma," said Ann Lizy, in a bewildered way.
"Don't you say anything," admonished her grandmother. "Now carry this
tray in, and be careful you don't spill the elderberry wine."
Poor Ann Lizy tried her best not to look at the bead bag, while the
parson's wife ate pound-cake, sipped the elderberry wine, and conversed
in her sweet, gracious way; but it did seem finally to her as if it were
the bead bag instead of the parson's wife that was making the call.
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