It was very late when the party broke up, and it was later still when Mrs. Rogers’ duties were over and she led the tired, sleepy Gertie by the hand through the morning moonlight to the cottage by the bridge. Gertie had seen a great deal of the party, and had envied the young ladies whom Godfrey whirled in the dance, and wished herself one of them. But there had been a comfort in knowing that her turn would come next week at the sociable, to which everybody was invited on the following Sunday, when the Rev. Mr. Marks, the new Rector at St. Luke’s, gave notice that the first church sociable of the season would be at Schuyler Hill on Thursday evening, adding that as the proceeds were to be appropriated for a new melodeon, which was greatly needed at the Mission School, a full attendance was desired. CHAPTER XXXI. THE CHURCH SOCIABLE. The young ladies had enjoyed the party thoroughly, but the church sociable was another thing, and the blame of it was charged entirely to Edith, who was really not in fault. Mr. Marks, the rector, was very zealous in his work, and one morning, while calling upon Edith, he broached the subject of the sociable. They were needing so much money, he said, and there was no house in the parish which would accommodate so many people or attract so great a crowd as the house at Schuyler Hill, and he wished Mrs. Schuyler would consent to have the sociable for once. Edith knew nothing at all of church sociables, or in what disfavor they were held in the house, and answered: “Certainly; I am quite willing if my husband is. You can ask him.” Julia, who was just entering the room, overheard the proposition, and went at once with the news to her aunt and Alice. “The idea of a Mite Society here,” she said, “with everybody coming, and Mrs. Vandeusenhisen the first to ring the bell, and Mrs. Thockmorton’s hired girl the second. It is preposterous. But father will never allow it, I am sure. Mr. Marks is to ask him, you know?” “Don’t flatter yourself, my dear, or count upon what your father may or may not do,” Miss Rossiter said, with all the scorn her thin lips could express. “New wives make new laws, and your father is a mere tool in that woman’s hands. Once he had a will of his own, now he has none, save that of her, whose low-born tastes will lead her to consort with such people as a Mite Society will bring.”