e was a beautiful woman,
childless, and much praised for her interest in church works. She was
rich and enjoyed the peculiar distinction of wearing very fashionable
gowns even to church. Upon this occasion something reserved, potential
and authoritative in her manner made me nervous. I had a premonition
that she was after somebody's dearest idol. And I was not left long in
suspense as to whose it was.

Fixing her wide brown eyes upon us with hypnotic intensity she said she
had felt moved, unaccountably moved, to tell the Auxiliary that we must
support a foreign female missionary this coming year. The silence that
met this announcement was sad and submissive. We were already paying
all the dues we could afford, this meant fifty dollars extra, and not a
single one of us wanted to send the missionary except Sister Shaller.

She went on to say, in her deep mezzo soprano voice, that she knew it
meant sacrifice for us, but that it was by just such sacrifices that we
grew in grace, and she desired to suggest the nature of the sacrifice,
one that we would probably feel the most, and would therefore be the
most beneficial.

"Suppose each of us resolves to do without our Spring gown for Easter.
Oh, my sisters! we could probably send two instead of one missionary
then. And we will have at the same time curbed the weakness and vanity
of our female natures!"

The rich plumes in her hat trembled with the depth of her emotions, her
pretty silk skirts rustled softly. But the silence continued. If she
had asked for the sacrifice of any but our Easter things, I reckon we
could have borne it better, but probably there was not a woman in the
room whose imagination had not already been cavorting under her
prospective Easter bonnet. As for me, I never felt so circumvented and
outraged in the whole course of my life as a preacher's wife. I had
the samples in my bag at that moment, and was only waiting for the
adjournment of the meeting to go to the store on my way home to
purchase my foulard.

There is one thing we have all noticed about a silence, especially in a
company of friends, if it lasts too long it gets sullen, and pregnant
with the animosity of unspoken thoughts. When the silence was
approaching this stage, Sister MacL, who had a sort of cradle heart for
soothing everyone, murmured in her crooning voice:

"Let us take it to the Lord in prayer!"

And we were about to rise and kneel like a set of angry children bef