Too depressed to control her thoughts, much less to bend them definitely upon consideration of some possible middle course between suicide and existence in this house, Jessica sat silent at the back of the stove, and suffered. Her evening here with her sisters seemed to blend in retrospect with the sleepless night into one long, confused, intolerable nightmare. They had scarcely spoken to her, and she had not known what to say to them. For some reason they had chosen to stay indoors after supper--although this was plainly not their habit--and under Samantha’s lead had entered into a clumsy conspiracy to make her unhappy by meaning looks, and causeless giggles, and more or less ingenious remarks directed at her, but to one another. Lucinda had indeed seemed to shrink from full communion with this cabal, but she had shown no overt act of friendship, and the three younger girls had been openly hostile. Even after she had taken refuge in her cold room, at an abnormally early hour, her sense of their enmity and her isolation had been kept painfully acute by their loud talk in the hall, and in the chamber adjoining hers. Oh, no!--she was not even going to try to live with them, she said resolutely and with set teeth to herself. They straggled into the kitchen now, and Lucinda was the only one of them who said “good-morning” to her. Jessica answered her greeting almost with effusion, but she would have had her tongue torn out rather than allow it to utter a solitary first word to the others. They stood about the stove for a time, and then sat down to the bare kitchen table upon which the maternal slattern had spread a kind of breakfast. Jessica took her place silently, and managed to eat a little of the bread, dipped in pork fat. The coffee, a strange, greasy, light-brown fluid without milk, she could not bring herself to touch. There was no butter. After this odious meal was over Samantha brought down a cheap novel, and ensconced herself at the side of the stove, with her feet on a stick of wood in the oven. The twins, after some protest, entered lazily upon the task of plucking the turkey. Lucinda drew a chair to the window, and began some repairs on her bonnet. For sheer want of other employment, Jessica stood by the window for a time, looking down upon this crude millinery. Then she diffidently asked to be allowed to suggest some changes, and Lucinda yielded the chair to her; and her deft fingers speedily wrought such a transformation in the work that the owner made an exclamation of delight. At this the twins left their turkey to come over and look, and even Samantha at last quitted the stove and sauntered to the window with an exaggerated show of indifference. She looked on for a moment, and then returned with a supercilious sniff, which scared the twins also away. When the hat was finished, and Lucinda had tried it on with obvious satisfaction, Jessica asked her to go for a little walk, and the two went out together.