"But Silas merely caught a-hold of the mood they was in, crafty, as if he'd been gettin' the signers to his petition while they was feelin' good. "'One moment, gentlemen!' s'he. 'Do you know what you're biddin' on? I ain't told you the half yet,' s'he. 'I ain't told you,' s'he, 'where these letters come from.' "With that he hitches his glasses an' looked at the postmarks. An' he read 'em off. Oh, an' what do you guess them postmarks was? I'll never forget the feelin' that come over me when I heard what he was sayin', turnin' back in under the string to see. For the stamps on the letters was foreign stamps. The postmarks was foreign postmarks. An' what Silas read off was: Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Singapore--oh, I can't begin to remember all the names nor to pronounce 'em, but I think they was all in India, or leastwise in Asia. Think of it! in Asia, that none of the Ladies' Foreign Missionary Circle hed been sure there was such a place. "I know how we all looked around at each other sudden, with the same little jump in the chest as when we remember we've got bread in the oven past the three-quarters, or when we've left the preserves on the blaze while we've done somethin' else an' think it's burnin', or when we've cut out both sleeves for one arm an' ain't got any more cloth. I mean it was that intimate, personal jump, like when awful, first-person things have happened. An' I tell you what, when the Ladies' Missionary feels a thing, they feel it strong an' they act it sudden. It's our way, as a Circle. An' in that look that went round among us there was hid the nod that knows what each other means. "'One dollar!' shouts one o' the travellin' men. "An' with that we all turned, like one solid human being, straight towards Mis' Postmaster Sykes, that was our president an' a born leader besides, an' the way we looked at her resembled a vote. "Mis' Sykes stood up, grave an' scairt, though not to show. An' we was sure she'd do the right thing, though we didn't know what the right thing was; but we felt confidence, I know, in the very pattern on the back of her shawl. An' she says, clear:-- "'I'd like to be understood to bid for the whole box o' Mr. Pitlaw's letters, includin' the bunch that's up. An' I bid five dollars.' "Of course we all knew in a minute what that meant: Mis' Sykes was biddin' with the proceeds of the Ten Cent Tropical Fête that was to be. But we see, too, that this was a missionary cause if there ever was one, an' they wa'n't one of us that thought it irregular, or grudged it, or looked behind. "I don't know whether you know how much five dollars rilly is--like you sense it when you've spoke it to a sale, or put it on a subscription paper in Friendship. There wasn't a sound in that store, everybody was so dumfounded. But none was so much as Silas Sykes. Silas was so surprised that he forgot that he was in public.