Mrs. Judson felt all this to the innermost recesses of her heart, as she stood at one end of the room conversing with Mrs. Brown, who was solemnly pleading the cause of her society, and impressing upon the lady-bountiful, that, inasmuch as sin was the parent of want, the charity should follow it double-handed; that, in wrestling with the monster, the strength of money must be added to the sanctity of prayer; in fact, the lady insinuated that without money in this case, prayer had not the efficacy which could be desired. It was well enough for starving people to have food; she did not object to that, but how much more important it was that perishing souls should be rescued as brands from the burning. Ah, if Mrs. Judson could only see what the Society had gone through: the depths of sin to which they had descended in search of souls; the trouble they had experienced in reforming them sufficiently for a glowing report, and the grief with which they had seen them fall back; still, there was one thing encouraging. These backsliders could generally be depended upon to reform again about the time a new report was demanded by the country members, and, as names were owned very promiscuously, that document was usually full of promise, hope, and satisfactory words. Still, the great need was money—money. Mrs. Brown only wished that she had eloquence necessary for a thorough understanding of the good her Society had already done. Here the two ladies were joined by Mrs. Brown’s husband, a tall, thin man, with weak eyes, and an air of subserviency that would have been edifying had Mrs. Judson been a woman worthy of human worship. “You were speaking of our own little mission, my love,” said the husband, deprecatingly. “Speaking with your own unvarying self-abnegation—always her way, dear madam. In order to know what that lovely woman is capable of, you should be with her night and day, as I am, in her laboring among the poor, fallen creatures, who often give back reviling for mercy. Working in season and out of season, waking up in the night and weeping floods of precious tears over the sins of her fellow-creatures. Ah! madam, to know her, you should be her shadow as I am.” If Mrs. Judson had been capable of enjoying the ridiculous, she might have laughed heartily at this harangue which was measured off exactly as Mr. Brown would have preached a sermon. “My dear, you are too enthusiastic,” interposed Mrs. Brown, tightening the elastic of her glove; “all that I can do will be but a drop in the bucket—an humble instrument, madam, seeking for the means of greater usefulness. It is painful, humiliating, that money should be so needed in the service of the Lord. I sometimes wonder how the apostles got along without it. It seems to me that no sinner will reform without bringing a heavy expense on the Society. Then it costs so much to bring them back when they return to the mire after we have brought them out, and made them clean.”