I made that red cloak for Miss Jane two years ago, and I know every stitch in it.

Don't you try and teach Ann Gossaway how to cut and baste or you'll git worsted," and the gossip looked over her spectacles at Martha and shook her side-curls in a threatening way.
Miss Gossaway had no love for the old nurse.

There had been a time when Martha "weren't no better'n she oughter be, so everybody said," when she came to the village, and the dressmaker never let a chance slip to humiliate the old woman.

Martha's open denunciation of the dressmaker's vinegar tongue had only increased the outspoken dislike each had for the other.

She saw now, to her delight, that the incident which had seemed to be only a bit of flotsam that had drifted to her shore and which but from Martha's manner would have been forgotten by her the next day, might be a fragment detached from some floating family wreck.
Before she could press the matter to an explanation Martha turned abruptly on her heel, called Meg, and with the single remark, "Well, I guess Miss Jane's of age," walked quickly across the grass-plot and out of the gate, the ball and chain closing it behind her with a clang.
Once on the street Martha paused with her brain on fire.