"To think of it!" they exclaimed, at her news of the capture, for none had read the paper. They had been too busy talking of the next debate, which was upon the question, "Ought we to pray for rain?" But now they instantly forgot the wide spiritual issues raised by this inquiry, and plunged into the fascinations of crime, reciting once more to each other the details of the recent tragedy. The room hired for the Lyceum was in a second story above the apothecary and book shop--a combined enterprise in Siskiyou--and was furnished with fourteen rocking-chairs. Pictures of Mount Shasta and Lucretia Mott ornamented the wall, with a photograph from an old master representing Leda and the Swan. This typified the Lyceum's approval of Art, and had been presented by one of the husbands upon returning from a three days' business trip to San Francisco. "Dear! dear!" said Mrs. Parsons, after they had all shuddered anew over the shooting and the blood. "With so much suffering in the world, how fulsome seems that gay music!" She referred to the Siskiyou brass-band, which was rehearsing the march from "Fatinitza" in an adjacent room in the building. Mrs. Parsons had large, mournful eyes, a poetic vocabulary, and wanted to be president of the Lyceum herself. "Melody has its sphere, Gertrude," said Mrs. Campbell, in a wholesome voice. "We must not be morbid. But this I say to you, one and all: Since the men of Siskiyou refuse, it is for the women to vindicate the town's humanity, and show some sympathy for the captive who arrives to-night." They all thought so too. "I do not criticise," continued their president, magnanimously, "nor do I complain of any one. Each in this world has his or her mission, and the most sacred is Woman's own--to console!" "True, true!" murmured Mrs. Slocum. "We must do something for the prisoner, to show him we do not desert him in his hour of need," Mrs. Campbell continued. "We'll go and meet the train!" Mrs. Slocum exclaimed, eagerly. "I've never seen a real murderer." "A bunch of flowers for him," said Mrs. Parsons, closing her mournful eyes. "Roses." And she smiled faintly. "Oh, lilies!" cried little Mrs. Day, with rapture. "Lilies would look _real_ nice." "Don't you think," said Miss Sissons, who had not spoken before, and sat a little apart from the close-drawn clump of talkers, "that we might send the widow some flowers too, some time?" Miss Sissons was a pretty girl, with neat hair. She was engaged to the captain of Siskiyou's baseball nine. "The widow?" Mrs. Campbell looked vague. "Mrs. Montgomery, I mean--the murdered man's wife. I--I went to see if I could do anything, for she has some children; but she wouldn't see me," said Miss Sissons. "She said she couldn't talk to anybody."