Gratia's Trials — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

GRATIA’S TRIALS. 13 CHAPTER III. THE QUILTING PARTY SURPRISED, The next day dawned clear, soft, and radiant. Mrs. Deacon Playfair, who lived in the big yellow house across the road, congratulated herself that the weather was so auspicious for her quilting bee. A quilting bee in the country is synonymous with a ‘‘ recep- tion” in the city, only more sensible, in that there actually a something done besides exchanging hollow compliments, os one another's toilets among the fair guests. y two oclock the preparations were all complete, and the long supper-table, spread with snow-white damask and piles of napkins, was ready for the last touches. Mrs, Playfair and Phoebe Ann, her daughter, had excelled themselves in cake and jelly, dulcet creams, and raised biscuit. At three o'clock the quilt was finely under weigh, the center of a nucleus of thrifty neighbors, whose needles and tongues wagged in chorus, and the principal topic of discussson was the shadow hanging over the opposite house. Mrs. Playfair was seated near the door, which stood wide open to admit the yellow flood of the afternoon sunshine, when she chanced to look up. A gray shadow crept over her face, the features suddenly became drawn and rigid, and she started to her feet with a shriek. ‘‘ Hush!” she cried. ‘‘ Look there! What is that?” Mrs. Playfair beheld a sight which turned the blood in her veins to a cold tide of terror—Mary Kempfield, death-pale and ghastly, standing in the door-way, her hands clasping the side- post, as if for support, and her dark hair streaming wildly down over her white night-dress. Gomicboo cS (e(e) =)