"What's all this nonsense about St. Paul and women, Lizzie?" she began, laying the gloves by the bag and taking up the fan. "I heard that last remark, but Mr. Pryor didn't. Do you ever tell Mr. Pryor about St. Paul's opinions? I hope, some of these eternal times, I am going to know St. Paul. His epistles don't speak of a wife, but I've always imagined he had one, and of the kind who didn't agree with you, Lizzie, that women should keep silent and learn of their husbands at home-- like you learn of yours." The white ribbon strings which tied Miss Gibbie's broad-brimmed white straw hat under her chin were unfastened and thrown back over her shoulders, the sprig muslin skirt was spread out carefully, and the turkey-wing fan lifted from her lap, but for a moment Mrs. Pryor did not speak. Her face, not given to flushing, had colored at Miss Gibbie's words. She pressed her lips firmly together and looked around the room as if asking for Christian forbearance for so irreverent a speech as had just been heard; then she rose. "I do not care to discuss St. Paul. When a woman sits in judgment upon one of the disciples of the Lord--" "Don't get your Biblical history mixed, Lizzie. St. Paul was not one of the twelve. He was an apostle, a writer of epistles. I admire him, but, from his assertions concerning women, he must have had some in his family who gave him trouble. Whenever you hear a man in public insisting on keeping women in their place, keeping them down and under, not letting them do this or letting them do that, you may be certain he is a managed man. But if you won't discuss St. Paul with a sinner such as I, we willgo back to the person you were discussing, and I will discuss her with Christians such as you. Who was it? If it wasn't Mary Cary I will give ten dollars to your heathen fund." She looked around the room and then at Mrs. Webb. "Was it Mary Cary, Virginia?" Mrs. Webb, biting a strand of cotton held at arm's-length from the spool, nodded, then threaded her needle. "Yes, we were talking about her work here in Yorkburg, and Mrs. Pryor was telling us she had engaged the /General Maury/ to take the orphan children to Wayne Beach on the fourteenth, and--" "Lizzie wanted to know where the money was coming from? For a Christian woman, Lizzie, your curiosity in money matters is unrighteous. If money is honestly come by, what business is it of ours how it is spent?" "Why doesn't she tell how it is come by?" Mrs. Pryor's voice was high and sharp. "Mary Cary has been back in Yorkburg seven months--" "Seven months and two weeks," corrected Mrs. Tate, pointing her unthreaded needle at Mrs. Pryor. "She was a penniless orphan until thirteen"--the interruption was ignored--"and, so far as we've heard, she has never had a fortune left her, and yet after nine years' absence she comes back, has a beautiful home, a horse, and a runabout, keeps three servants, gives to everything, spends freely, and never tells how she gets the money."