uperseded as president of the board. She who had ever been
foremost in the counsels of the Infants' Home and the St. Mary's Guild
found herself gradually slighted in the matter of entertainments, etc.,
though still graciously permitted to do most of the clerical work.

For nearly a dozen years she had served as secretary and treasurer of
the Young Woman's Church Aid and Temperance Union, a beneficent
organization that still held many meetings but few converts. It had the
backing of three or four wealthy congregations, however, and the control
of a generous fund. When the year '94 was ushered in and the victims of
the panic of '93 were enumerated, the case of Priscilla Sanford had
excited prompt and rather widespread interest; but the sympathy that
might have been as readily accorded was tempered by the reflection that
Miss Sanford had ever been what they termed "bossy," by which it was by
no means meant to imply that bovine sluggishness and submission were
Miss Sanford's marked characteristics, for Miss Sanford was energy
personified in petticoats. It had been moved, seconded and carried, in a
spasm of feminine generosity, that the secretary and treasurer should be
paid a salary, small, to be sure, but something, and Priscilla Sanford,
who had labored without fee or financial reward a dozen years, was
permitted to hold the position as a salaried official just one year
longer, by which time it was determined that Miss Sanford had really
been secretary much too long, and, anyhow, that somebody else stood much
more in need of it. So Priscilla's party found itself outvoted at the
annual election, and the Young Woman's Church Aid ceased, except in
name, to be a temperance union. With much that was intemperate in tone
and language, the union burst its bonds and flew to pieces, one or more
to each congregation. Then Priscilla tried her hand at writing for the
various journals of the clerical order. Some few published, but none
paid for, her contributions. Then Aunt Marion began sending occasional
drafts that were not to be mentioned to anybody. Then came Priscilla's
bid to join Uncle Will and Aunt Marion at Minneconjou, and
then--Priscilla herself.

She had been there barely forty-eight hours when there arrived from the
Philippines a bulky letter from Lieutenant Sandy Ray, eldest son and
hope and heir, dated "Camp Lawton, Benguet." It had been nearly three
months on the way. It brought tidings that made his mother's soft cheek