'The nobility of my birth
constrains me.' So, if I call myself one of the royal family, how
courteous and kind I must be to every one, whether agreeable or not."
Thus, when the Wednesday came which was to see Betty's quilt upon the
frames, Sara left baby, with many instructions, to the children; and,
dressed in her best, wended her way to the low brown house in the edge
of the pine grove, where Betty lived with her parents, and an
overflowing household of younger children, and whence she was not sorry
to go to the smaller, but less crowded cottage of young Nathan Truman,
second mate of a schooner, of whom she was as proud and fond as if he
had been captain of an East Indiaman, with both a town and country
house. To-day the front room, which resembled Sara's, only that its
furniture was far more battered and worn, was cleared of everything but
a row of chairs, which followed the length of its four walls in lines as
even and true as those of an infantry regiment "dressed up" to the toe-
mark for inspection; and through the centre, upon the rude and clumsy
frame, was stretched a quilt of wonderful construction and a blinding
confusion of colors. It was a "Remembrance Quilt," Betty explained, as
soon as the company had arrived and filled the funereal rows of chairs,
being pieced from bits given her by all of her friends and
acquaintances.
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