een
her look worse.

"Dear Mrs. Coombe, I think your belt-pin has become--allow me!" Miss
Milligan, dressmaker in private life, with a discreet swiftness,
twitched the blouse and skirt into place and deftly fastened it. At the
same time she closed a gap in the fastening of the blouse itself.

Mary Coombe laughed. "Dear me! Am I undone? I must have forgotten to
ask Amy to fix me. These blouses that fasten in the back are such a
nuisance!"

The President smiled politely, but with evident effort. Mrs. Coombe was
a prominent member. Still, on principle, she, a president, could not be
expected to approve of people who forgot to have themselves done up.
Supposing the minister had been present!

"What are we doing this afternoon?" asked the unconscious delinquent
languidly. "Autograph quilts? I've got a lot of blocks for you--friends
of mine in the city." She began to fumble in the pretty workbag she
carried. "Gracious, I was sure I had them with me! Isn't that odd? I
can't find them."

"Let me look," suggested Miss Jessie Sinclair kindly.

But the other snatched back the open bag with a gesture which was almost
rude.

"Oh, no--they are not there! I can't imagine what I have done with
them." She looked up in a bewildered way. Indeed the perturbation was so
out of proportion to the size of the calamity that the ladies questioned
each other with their eyes.

The President tapped with her thimble upon the quilting frame and every
one became very busy. "I hope," she said, taking the conversation into
her own hands for safe keeping, "that you found all well upon your
return, Mrs. Coombe? I hardly ever seem to see Esther now. Did you know
that we have been talking of changing our meeting to Saturday afternoon
so that Esther and some more of our younger folk may join us? We thought
that it would be so nice for them--and for us too," she finished
graciously.

Mrs. Coombe looked surprised. "I can hardly see Esther at a Ladies' Aid
Meeting," she said. "Did she tell you she would come?"

"No. We have not yet told any one of the proposed change. But we all
felt--"

"We all felt," interrupted Miss Sinclair, who was fairly sniffing the
air with the spirit of glorious war, "that the less time our young girls
have to go off philandering with young fools whom no one knows anything
about, the better it will be for everybody concerned!"

Mary looked up with an air of pleased surprise.

"Has Esther been philandering?" she asked