They used to have what they called tea-parties--and a fearful infliction they were--and I was expected to hand round the tea and cakes, and make myself useful.

I think I might have managed well enough if the old women would have let me alone; but they were always expecting me to do something wrong, and I was conscious that whatever they were doing they had an eye upon me.
"It's trying, you know, when you hear exclamations like this: 'The saints presarve us! if he hasn't nearly poked his elbow into Mrs.
Fitzgerald's eye!' or, 'See now, if he isn't standing on Miss Macrae's train!' One day I let a cup of coffee fall on to old Mrs.O'Toole's new crimson silk dress.

It was the first she had had for nine years to my knowledge, and would have lasted her for the rest of her natural life.

And if you could have heard the squall she made, and the exclamations of my aunts, and the general excitement over that wretched cup of coffee, you would never have forgotten it.
"It had one good result, I was never asked to hand things round again and was indeed never expected to put in an appearance until the tea-things were taken away.

I suffered for months for that silk dress.
My aunts got two yards of material and presented them to Mrs.O'Toole; and for weeks and weeks I got short allowance of butter to my bread and no sugar in my tea, and had to hear remarks as to the necessity for being economical.