watery expression.
His mouth was pulled up in the middle and drawn down at the corners.

"I suppose Mrs. Coleman has already informed you?" he began in
sepulchral tones.

"About what?" asked Coleman, who warily avoided admitting that he was
not in Agatha's confidence.

"About what happened this afternoon at the Woman's Home and Foreign
Missionary meeting."

"My wife is still upstairs with the children," he evaded.

"I saw Mrs. Sasnett as soon as it was over. She came straight to me and
told me all that had occurred. Really I could not have believed such a
thing could happen in a Christian community!" he groaned.

"What did happen? Has that Walton woman garnisheed the missionary
collection?" asked Coleman impatiently.

"Worse than that! I fear there will be no collection," he answered,
wagging his head. Then he went on:

"Mrs. Sasnett, as you know, is a very loyal worker. She's president of
the society here. She did what she could to prevent the catastrophe, but
she was powerless. Then she resigned. This was Rally Day, you know. The
women from all the county churches came in. There must have been two
hundred of them. We looked forward to a very profitable meeting. I
prayed the opening prayer myself. Then I had some calls to make. It was
after I went out that it happened," the inference being that had he
remained it could not possibly have happened. "The minutes were read.
Mrs. Sasnett made an address. Then, as is the custom, she opened the
meeting for general discussion.

"She said that before any one else had time to get up, Mrs. Walton arose
and began to speak. As president, Mrs. Sasnett told me she tried to stop
her when she realized the iniquitous trend of her remarks. But she was
unable to do so. The women in the congregation actually clapped their
hands and insisted that she should be allowed to go on.

"That woman-- I can hardly bring myself to speak of her with
respect--began by saying that she had long felt called as a Christian
citizen--she used the term citizen--to inform the women of our church of
the mistake they were making with their missionary dues. She had too
much confidence in their motherhood to believe they would be guilty of
such heathen conduct if they really understood.

"The report Mrs. Sasnett gave was so vivid I'm able to quote the very
words of Mrs. Walton's outrageous assault upon the church.

"'This state ranks third from the bottom in the United States in
illiteracy, and Jor