"Yes, I do say so, humble as I am," says Sugar-scoop. "Look out there. See those women in Israel--three precious souls, just gathered into the fold. For two days they have been constantly at the redemption-seat. The spirit is upon them now. Their souls are struggling to be free. Before another morning they will be born again." I looked at a group of women she pointed out, and the human nature within me yeasted over. They were three of the homeliest creatures I ever set eyes on--long and lank, with faces like sour baked-apples. "Oh, my beloved sister," says Sugar-scoop, a-laying her cotton-gloved hand on mine; "can you look on that heavenly sight and not pray to be like unto them?" I shook the cotton glove from my arm, and the hand that was in it, just as St. Paul shook off the viper. "Like them, madam--like them! If I were one-half as lank and homely, I should want to be born again once a week, at least." Sugar-scoop lifted both hands in awful horror. "There are souls," says she, "given up to eternal darkness, I fear. Oh, sister, how I tremble for yours!" I was trembling with indignation. What right had this woman to assault me in this fashion? I did not know her; she did not know me. My white feather was a badge of noble patriotism; my gaiter boots fitted a foot that has been an object of encomium with every shoemaker who has been honored by taking its measure--to say nothing of a glance given it by imperial eyes. Does religious zeal justify uncivil intrusion? What right had this sugar-scoopy woman to exhort me? How did she know that my heart was not already in the right path? I asked this very question: "Madam," says I, "by what right do you pretend to teach me, a stranger, of whose life you can know nothing?" "I'm in the service of the Lord," says she, "looking up lost sheep. When I find one, torn and draggled with sin, it is my duty to drive it into the fold, where its fleece can be worked white as snow." "But how can you tell? By what authority do you claim the right to judge of a person you have never seen?" "Are we not told to go out into the highways and the hedges, and force them to come in?" says she. "Whether they want to or not?" says I. "Exactly," says she; "their not wanting to come into the fold shows the state of wickedness into which they have fallen." "But how do you know that I am wicked?" says I. She looked at me a long time, as if the idea were new to her. She had been so eager in raking up sinners, that it seemed to hurt her feelings to think that any human being she met wasn't on the high road to--well, what's its name? "That feather," says she, "isn't a mark of regeneration." "No," says I, "but it is the badge of a patriotic idea." The creature didn't take in this delicate political hint. In fact, anything fine or keen is sure to puzzle your woman of one idea. "Where do you go to meeting?" says she, as abrupt as a cracked stick. "Where my father did, generally," says I.