"I think we may be able to leave her one room," said Mrs. Jameson;
and Louisa and I fairly gasped when we reflected that Emily Shaw had
not yet heard a word of the plan.

"I don't know but Emily Shaw will put up with it, for she is pretty
meek," said Louisa when Mrs. Jameson had gone hurrying down the
street to impart her scheme to others; "but it is lucky for Mrs.
Jameson that Flora Clark hasn't the oldest house in town."

I said I doubted if Flora would even consent to let her furniture be
displayed in the centennial; but she did. Everybody consented to
everything. I don't know whether Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson had really
any hypnotic influence over us, or whether we had a desire for the
celebration, but the whole village marshalled and marched to her
orders with the greatest docility. All our cherished pieces of old
furniture were loaded into carts and conveyed to the old Shaw house.

The centennial was to be held the tenth day of August, and there was
necessarily quick work. The whole village was in an uproar; none of
us who had old-fashioned possessions fairly knew where we were
living, so many of them were in the Shaw house; we were short of
dishes and bureau drawers, and counterpanes and curtains. Mrs.
Jameson never asked for any of these things; she simply took them
as by right of war, and nobody gainsaid her, not even Flora Clark.
However, poor Emily Shaw was the one who displayed the greatest
meekness under provocation. The whole affair must have seemed
revolutionary to her. She was a quiet, delicate little woman, no
longer young. She did not go out much, not even to the sewing circle
or the literary society, and seemed as fond of her home as an animal
of its shell--as if it were a part of her. Old as her house was, she