And they called upon Miss Caroline with precisely this end in view--called singly, and by twos and threes. But for some reason they seemed always to find obstacles in the way of bringing forward this most vital topic. If they had only discovered Miss Caroline in her cups, or if her shaded rooms had been littered with empty rum bottles and pervaded by the fumes of strong drink, or if she had audaciously offered them wine, doubtless the thing would have been easy. But none of these helpful phenomena could be observed, and Miss Caroline had a way of leading the talk which would have made any reference to her unfortunate habits seem ungraceful. It would be far too much to say that she charmed them, but all of her callers were interested, many of them were entertained, and a few became her warm defenders. Aunt Delia McCormick surprised every one by aligning herself with this latter minority. She declared, after her first call, that Miss Caroline was "a dear"; and after the second call, that she was "a poor dear," and she forthwith became of service to the newcomer in a thousand ways known only to the masonry of housekeeping. And since none of the ladies, for one reason or another, had found a way to say those things that Mrs. Lansdale sorely needed to hear, it was agreed among them that the minister must say them. "The minister" in Little Arcady meant him of the Methodist church, the two other clergymen being so young and unimportant as to need identification by name. Of the official and inspired visit of this good man to Miss Caroline, the version that reached the public was one thing: its secret and true history was another. The latter has never been told until now. It was known abroad only that the minister had called on a warm afternoon in July; that Miss Caroline had received him out of doors, on the shaded east side of the house, where the heat had driven her to await a cooling breeze from the river. One of the dingy rugs had been spread upon the grass close to the lilac clump, and by an unfashionable little table Miss Caroline sat, in a chair sadly out of date, reading of Childe Harold. It was understood that the minister had there sat in another antiquated chair of capacious arms and upholstered in faded green velvet, a chair brought by Clem; and that he had weakly chatted away a pleasant hour or two without ever once daring to bring Miss Caroline's evil state to that attention which it merited from her. His difficulty seemed to have been similar to that experienced by the calling ladies. He could observe no opening that promised anything but an ungracious plunge or an awkward stumble, and the ladies had been wrong in suspecting that his authority as a cleric would nerve him to either of these things.