"Just as anybody would be talked about who is so very--very alive. I am sure she means well, but it is the Christian duty of some one to point out to her the mistakes she is making. She is spending money freely. Where does it come from?" Mrs. Pryor forgot her weeds, and her voice was the voice of the May meeting. "Where does that mysterious money come from? Everybody knows Gibbie Gault has money, but has anybody ever known her to give a dollar of it away? Go to her when you will and ask her to subscribe to this or contribute to that and she waves you out. Who has ever seen her name on any list of givers to anything. The money her father left her has increased enormously in value I've been told. She's a good business woman. Nobody denies that, but what will she present to her Maker when she stands before Him at the bar of judgment. And what are the words which she will hear?" "Couldn't any of us guess that." Miss Mittie Muncaster went up to the grate and put on a large lump of coal. "I reckon a good many people would like to know what other people are going to have said to them at the bar of judgment. The thought of hell is a great comfort to some people. I certainly am glad the Lord's got to judge me, and not women. But, speaking of Mary Cary, I hear she's awfully worried about Lily's running away. She thinks it was so disrespectful to her mother not to tell her first and run afterward, if her mother still held out. Mary don't know Mrs. Deford. Lily wanted to take her head with her when she ran. There are mothers and mothers, and Mrs. Deford isn't the kind Mary keeps in her heart. I bet she gives it to John when she sees him." "Since this Mr. Fielding has been here, no one sees John with Mary any more." Mrs. Corbin put her needle between her lips. "Who is this Mr. Fielding? I don't like his looks a bit. He's never been here before." Miss Honoria Brockenborough got up to go. Her lorgnette, the only one in town except Mrs. Deford's, was held to her eyes, and for a moment she looked at Mrs. Corbin. "His presence here is a disgrace to Yorkburg." Her tone was icy. "I have heard very strange things of late. It is his money, I understand, which Mary Cary has been spending. He has as much as admitted it himself." Chapter XXIV THE PIECE OF PAPER Standing in front of the library fire, Miss Gibbie held her hands out to it blaze. "This room isn't warm enough. Jackson isn't half attending to the furnace. I wish you'd ring for him to put on more coal. Jackson is losing his mind of late. If he wasn't a church member I'd think he was seeking, he's been so doleful the last few days. They are half-cracked, every one of them, when their meetings begin."