The girl was busy looking after these donations when once the members of the sewing circle began to arrive; and Aunt 'Mira's pantry had never before been so stacked with food. Marty stole in to gaze at the goodies, and whispered: "Hi tunket! Just you go away for half an hour, Janice, and lemme be here. I could do something to that tuck right now." "And so soon after dinner?" cried his cousin. "I wonder if boys _are_ hollow all the way down to their heels, as they say they are?" "It ain't that," grinned Marty. "But a feller runs so many chances in this world of going hungry, that he ought ter fill up while he can. You just turn your back for a while and I'll show you, Janice." But his cousin turned the key in the pantry door and slipped it into her pocket for safety. "We'll have no larks like _that_, Master Marty," she declared. Mrs. Scattergood and 'Rill were among the first to arrive; and then came Mrs. Middler, the minister's wife. Mrs. Beasely was there, and Walky Dexter's wife, and the druggist's sister, who kept house for him; and Mrs. Poole, the doctor's wife; and Mrs. Marvin Petrie, who had married children living in Boston and always spent her winters with them, and had just come back to Poketown again for the season. Many of the ladies of Poketown never thought of making up their spring frocks, or having Mrs. Link, the milliner, trim their Easter bonnets, until Mrs. Marvin Petrie came from Boston. She was supposed to bring with her the newest ideas for female apparel, and her taste and advice was sought on all sides when the ladies sat down to their sewing in the big sitting-room of the old Day house. Mrs. Marvin Petrie, however, was one of those persons who seem never to absorb any helpful ideas. Her forte was mostly criticism. She could see the faults of her home town, and her home people, in comparison with the Hub; but she had never, thus far, led in any benefit to Poketown. "You can't none of you understand how glad I am to git to my daughter Mabel's in the winter; and then how glad I am to shake the mud of Boston off my gaiters when it comes spring," declared the traveled lady, who had a shrill voice of great "carrying" quality. When Mrs. Marvin Petrie was talking there was little other conversation at the sewing circle. Her comments upon people she had met and things she had seen, were in the line of a monologue. "I do sartainly grow tired of Poketown when it comes fall, and things is dead, and the wind gets cold, and all. I'm sartain sure glad to git shet of it!" she pursued on this particular afternoon. "And then the first sight of Boston--and the mud--and the Common and Public Library,--and the shops, and all, make me feel like I was livin' again.