Did not I, sixty years ago, lie on the shelf and laugh as I saw her stand by the half hour before the glass, giving an extra twist to her curl and an additional dash of white powder on her hair--now fretted because the powder was too thick, now fretted because it was too thin?
She was as proud in cambric and calico and nankeen as Harriet is to-day in white tulle and organdy.

I remember how careful she was when she ran me along the edges of the new dress.

With me she clipped and notched and gored and trimmed, and day and night I went click! click! click! and it seemed as if she would never let me rest from cutting.
I split the rags for the first carpet on the old homestead, and what a merry time we had when the neighbors came to "the quilting!" I lay on the coverlet that was stretched across the quilting-frame and heard all the gossip of 1799.

Reputations were ripped and torn just as they are now.
Fashions were chattered about, the coalscuttle bonnet of some offensive neighbor (who was not invited to the quilting) was criticised, and the suspicion started that she laced too tight; and an old man who happened to have the best farm in the county was overhauled for the size of his knee-buckles, and the exorbitant ruffles on his shirt, and the costly silk lace to his hat.

I lay so still that no one supposed I was listening.