ooks like Providence was steppin' in," said Elder Hooper to Deacon
Pettybone. "Dunno's I ever see a more fittin' _as_ well _as_ proper
follerin' up of sinful carelessness by sich consequences as might be
expected to ensue."

"Uh-huh!... That there name of her'n. Folks differs about the way to say
it. I been holdin' out ag'in' many for Wife-ette--that way. Looks like
French or suthin' furrin. Others say it's Weev-ette. If 'twan't for
seemin' to show interest in the baggage, dummed if I wouldn't up and ask
her."

"Names don't count," said Old Man Bogle, oracularly. "She hain't to
blame for pickin' her name. Her ma gave it to her out of a book, seems
as though. Nevertheless, 'tain't no fit name for a woman, and, so fur's
I kin see, she fits her name like Ovid Nixon's tailor pants fits his
laigs."

"She's light," said the elder.

"Sh'u'dn't be s'prised," said Old Man Bogle, rolling his eyes, "if she
was one of them actoresses. Venture to say she's filled with worldly
wisdom, that gal, and that sin and cuttin' up different ways hain't
nothin' strange nor unaccustomed to her."

"While I was a-drinkin' down her coffee out of that measly leetle cup,"
said the deacon, "she was that brazen! Acted like she'd took a fancy to
me," he said, with a sprucing back of his old shoulders.

"Got all the wiles of that there woman that danced off the head of John
the Baptist," said the elder, grimly. "So she dasted even to tempt a
deacon of the church."

"She didn't tempt me none," snapped the deacon, "but I lay she was
willin'."

"I'll venture," said Old Man Bogle, with a light in his rheumy eyes,
"that she hain't no stranger to wearin' _tights._"

"Shame!" said the elder and the deacon, in a breath. And then, from the
deacon, in a tone which might have been a reflection of lofty
satisfaction in a virtue, or which might have been something quite
different, "I've read of them there tights, Elder, but I kin say with a
clear conscience that I hain't never witnessed a pair of 'em."

"My nevvy took me to a show in Boston wunst," said Old Man Bogle,
tentatively, but he was silenced immediately and sternly.

"How kin a man combat evil," he demanded, "if he hain't familiar with
the wiles of it?"

"He kin set his face to the right," said the elder, "and tread the
path."

"You wouldn't b'lieve the things I seen in that show," said Bogle,
waggling his head.

"Don't intend to be called on to b'lieve 'em," said the deacon.
"Look.... C