Thistle and Rose

ll an unusual event, for the ladies of Dornton and the neighbourhood had undertaken to embroider some curtains for their beautiful old church, and this necessitated a weekly meeting of two hours, followed by the refreshment of tea, and conversation. The people of Dornton were fond of meeting in each other's houses, and very sociably inclined. They met to work, they met to read Shakespeare, they met to sing and to play the piano, they met to discuss interesting questions, and they met to talk. It was not, perhaps, so much what they met to do that was the important thing, as the fact of meeting.

"So pleasant to meet, isn't it?" one lady would say to the other. "I'm not very musical, you know, but I've joined the glee society, because it's an excuse for meeting."

And, certainly, of all the houses in Dornton where these meetings were held, Dr Hunt's was the favourite. Mrs Hunt was so amiable and pleasant, the tea was so excellent, and the conversation of a most superior flavour. Th