ossy's afternoon had been an uninterrupted satisfaction to
her. She attended the children's meeting, and it was perfectly amazing
to her newly awakened brain how many of the stories, used to point
truths for the children, touched home to her.

Dr. Hurlbut, of Plainfield, seemed to have especially planned his
address for the purpose of hitting at some of the markedly weak points
in her character, though no doubt the good man would have been utterly
amazed had he known her thoughts.

She listened and laughed with the rest over the story of the poor tailor
who promised a coat to a customer for one, two and three weeks, heaping
up his promises one on the other until he had a perfect pyramid of them,
only to topple about his ears. She heard with the rest the magnificent
voice ring out the solemn conclusion:

"Children, he did not mean to lie. He did not even think he was a liar.
He only _broke his promises_."

They all heard, and I don't know how many shivered over it, but I _do_
know that to Flossy Shipley it seemed as if some one had struck her an
actual blow. Was it possible that the easy sentences, the easy promises,
to "write," to "come," to "bring this," to "tell that," made so
gracefully, sounding so kindly, costing so little because forgotten
almost as soon as her head was turned away, actually belonged in that
list described by the ugly word "lie." Flossy had been a special sinner
in this department of polite wickedness because it just accorded with
her nature; such promises were so easy to make, and seemed to please
people, and were so easy to forget. Like the tailor, she hadn't meant to
be a liar, nor dreamed that she was one.

But her wide-open ears took it all in, and her roused brain turned the
thought over and over, until, be it known to you, that that girl's happy
pastor, when he receives from her a decided, "Yes, sir, I will do it,"
may rest assured that unless something beyond her control intervenes she
will be at her post.

So much did Dr. Hurlbut accomplish that afternoon without ever knowing
it. There were many things done that afternoon, I suspect, that only
the light of the judgement day will reveal. Over the story of the two
workmen, who each resolved to stick to a certain effort for six months,
and did it, the one earning thereby a patent right worth thousands of
dollars, and the other teaching a little dog how to dance to the
whistling of a certain tune, Flossy looked unutterably sober, while