She knew everything that it was possible to know about the people who lived in Franklin Street, and yet her mind was so constituted that she never by any chance knew it correctly.

Though she was not old, she had already passed into a proverb.

To receive any statement with the remark, "You have heard that from Bessie Spencer," was to cast doubt upon it.
"You don't think I'm getting any stouter, do you, Miss Lancaster ?" she inquired dubiously, with her hands on her hips and her eyes measuring the dimensions of her waist.

"I'm making up my mind to try one of those B.and T.corsets that Mrs.Murray is wearing.

She told me it reduced her waist at least three inches." "Oh, you aren't like Mrs.Murray--she didn't measure a fraction under thirty inches," replied Miss Lancaster, with her patient politeness.
Then, after a pause, which Mrs.Spencer's nimble wit filled with a story about the amazing number of mint juleps Mrs.Murray was seen to drink at the White Sulphur Springs last summer, Florrie exclaimed eagerly: "Why, there is Gabriella! Won't you get her for us, Miss Lancaster ?" Near one of the long windows, beyond which large greenish flies were buzzing around the branch of a mulberry tree in the alley, Gabriella was trying a purple hat on a prim-looking lady who regarded herself in the mirror with a furtive and deprecating air as if she were afraid of being unjustly blamed for her appearance.