The Misses Moffet Mend A Marriage: A Victorian San Francisco Story Read Free

income from her boarding house giving business and domestic advice as the clairvoyant Madam Sibyl), and she had a deep affection and respect for these two spinster seamstresses who seemed to embrace life with such good cheer.
    However, Miss Minnie, the elder, had been speaking for nearly five minutes about the Christmas tree her family had when she was fifteen and her sister Millie was eleven, and Annie doubted very much if that had been the point of their invitation to join them in the formal front parlor of the boarding house. While Annie rather enjoyed imagining these two women as girls, stringing popped corn and dried cranberries around a fifteen-foot fir tree, her time this evening was limited. She had promised Nate Dawson, the local lawyer who was courting her, that she would be free if he stopped by, and he would not appreciate finding her chaperoned by Miss Minnie and Miss Millie since he had the unreasonable belief that they disapproved of him.
    Annie repressed a grin . Miss Minnie did have the habit of talking about the particular charms of the young men of Natchez when Nate was around. He said that this was proof they felt he wasn’t good enough for Annie. She thought that it was more likely that he simply reminded them of the gentlemen of their youth because he was clean-shaven, which had been the fashion back then, and because he treated them with such kind politeness.
    “… and that was the Christmas when our older bro ther brought us back those china dolls from his trip to New Orleans. Don’t you remember, Millicent? And Jasper hid yours in the privy! Jasper was only seven at the time, but he was always getting into trouble. Mrs. Fuller, you remember, Jasper was our baby brother, and we were so used to taking care of him that we came all the way out west, just to make sure he didn’t get into any trouble out here. Of course…”
    Annie saw Miss Millie place her hand on her older sister’s arm, and the flow of reminiscences faltered. She found herself holding her breath, waiting to see if Miss Millie would say something. The two women sitting in front of her, in their identical black-silk dresses, were physically so alike they could be twins. They were both tiny, with ramrod straight postures, white hair parted neatly in the center and swept back under identical lace caps, and merry light-blue eyes. Miss Minnie seemed to walk a little more stiffly than her younger sister, and the effects of a lifetime of needlework (slight reddening around the eyes and swollen knuckles) were more prominent in her as well. But one didn’t need to look that closely to determine which of the two women was which, because the difference was unmistakable. The elder, Miss Minnie, never stopped talking, and the younger, Miss Millie, never said a word. Ever. The only reason Annie knew that she could speak was that Kathleen, her maid, had heard them talking to each other up in their attic workroom. Annie had always wondered if Miss Minnie spoke so much because her sister didn’t or if Miss Millie had given up trying to speak around her extremely loquacious older sister.
    Annie saw Miss Minnie look quickly at her younger sister, and then she began to speak again. “Mrs. Fuller, Millicent has reminded me that Miss Kathleen mentioned that your nice young man, Mr. Dawson, was stopping by this evening, and we wouldn’t want to inconvenience you. Of course, back when I was young, it was considered a lady’s prerogative to keep a gentleman waiting.”
    Annie took advantage of the brief pause that followed this last statement, and she said, “Please , Miss Minnie, do tell me how I might be of service to you and your sister. Do you need anything to make your rooms more comfortable? Mrs. O’Rourke had mentioned that you could use an additional lamp in your work room now that the days are growing so short.”
    “Oh, Mrs. Fuller, no, we are quite comfortable. No one could be more obliging. No, it is your advice we need. ‘A trouble