"Just then we all got up to see out the window, for the Proudfit automobile drew up to Mis' Sykes's gate. They was several folks in it, like they had been most of the time during the house party, with everybody flying hither and yon; and they was letting Mis' Emmons out. It was just exactly like her to remember to come right out of the midst of a house party to a meeting of Sodality. That woman was pure gold. When they was a lot of things to choose about, she always seemed to let the pleasant and the light and the easy-to-do slip right through her fingers, that would close up by and by on the big real thing that most folks would pretend to try to catch _after_ it had slipped through, and yet would be awful glad to see disappearing. "We didn't talk clothes any more after Mis' Emmons come in. Some way her clothes was so professional seeming, in colour and cut, that beside of her the rest of us never said much about ours; though I will say Mis' Emmons always wore her clothes like she was no more thinking about them than she would be thinking about morning housework togs. "'Well-said, how's the little boy, Mis' Emmons?' asks Mis' Toplady, hearty. 'I declare I couldn't go to sleep a night or two ago for thinkin' about the little soul. Heard any sound out of his folks?' "'I'm going to tell you about that pretty soon,' Mis' Emmons answered--and it made my heart beat a little with wondering if she'd got her plans thought out, not only four-square, but tower-high. 'He is well--he wanted to come to the meeting. "I like ladies," he said, "when they look at me like loving, but not when they touch me much." Mr. Insley has him out walking.' "'Little soul,' says Mis' Toplady, again. "Out in the back parlour, some of us had been talking about Christopher already. "'I heard,' Mis' Merriman says, that wasn't to the church the night Christopher come, 'I heard that he didn't have much of any clothes on. An' that nobody could understand what he said. An' that nobody could get him to speak a word.' "'Pshaw,' Mis' Sturgis puts in, 'he was a nice-dressed little boy, though wet; an' quite conversational.' "'Well, I think it's a great problem,' says Mis' Uppers. 'He's too young for the poorhouse and too old for the babies' home. Seems like they wasn't anything _to_ do with him.' "There come a lull when Mis' Postmaster Sykes, in a ruffled lawn that had shrunk too short for anything but house wear, stood up by the piano and called the meeting to order. And when we'd got on down to new business, the purpose of the meeting and a hint of the pleasure was stated formal by Mis' Sykes herself. 'One thing why I like to preside at Sodality,' I heard her tell once, 'is, you do get your say whenever you want it, and nobody can interrupt you when you're in the chair.' "'Ladies,' she says, 'we've seen from the treasurer's report we've got some Sixty-odd Dollars on hand. The question is, where shall we vote it to. Let the discussion be free.'