and as they loved their own bodies.

"'Now,' says she, 'if Brother Page can reconcile these texts with what
Paul says about women submittin' and bein' subject, he's welcome to do
it. But,' says she, 'if I had the preachin' to do, I wouldn't waste
time reconcilin'. I'd jest say that when Paul told women to be subject
to their husbands in everything, he wasn't inspired; and when he told
men to love their wives as their own bodies, he was inspired; and I'd
like to see the Presbytery that could silence me from preachin' as
long as I wanted to preach. As for turnin' out o' the church,' says
she, 'I'd like to know who's to do the turnin' out. When the disciples
brought that woman to Christ there wasn't a man in the crowd fit to
cast a stone at her; and if there's any man nowadays good enough to
set in judgment on a woman, his name ain't on the rolls of Goshen
church. If 'Lizabeth,' says she, 'had as much common sense as she's
got conscience, she'd know that the matter o' that money didn't
concern nobody but our Mite Society, and we women can settle it
without any help from you deacons and elders.'

"Well, I reckon Parson Page thought if he didn't head Sally Ann off
some way or other she'd go on all night; so when she kind o' stopped
for breath and shut up the big Bible, he grabbed a hymn-book and says:

"'Let us sing "Blest be the Tie that Binds."'

"He struck up the tune himself; and about the middle of the first
verse Mis' Page got up and went over to where 'Lizabeth was standin',
and give her the right hand of fellowship, and then Mis' Petty did the
same; and first thing we knew we was all around her shakin' hands and
huggin' her and cryin' over her. 'Twas a reg'lar love-feast; and we
went home feelin' like we'd been through a big protracted meetin' and
got religion over again.

"'Twasn't more'n a week till 'Lizabeth was down with slow
fever--nervous collapse, old Dr. Pendleton called it. We took turns
nursin' her, and one day she looked up in my face and says, 'Jane, I
know now what the mercy of the Lord is.'"

Here Aunt Jane paused, and began to cut three-cornered pieces out of a
time-stained square of flowered chintz. The quilt was to be of the
wild-goose pattern. There was a drowsy hum from the bee-hive near the
window, and the shadows were lengthening as sunset approached.

"One queer thing about it," she resumed, "was that while Sally Ann was
talkin', not one of us felt like laughin'. We set there as solemn a