"May I ask," she began in the honeyed, "society" tone that in her own family was recognised as the sure precursor of battle, "why the poor should be dressed in dusters?" The eight ladies concentrated their gaze upon the roll of material which certainly did bear a strong resemblance to the bundles offered by drapers at sale times as "strong, useful, and much reduced." "It is the usual thing," Miss Tibbits replied shortly, "we have to consider utility, not ornament." Mrs Grantly stretched across the table, swiftly seized the material, gathered it up under her chin, and with a dramatic gesture stood up so that it fell draped about her. "Look at me!" she exclaimed. "If I had to wear clothes made of stuff like this, I should go straight to the Devil!" And at that very moment, just as she proclaimed in a loud voice the downward path she would tread if clad in the material Miss Tibbits had selected, the door was opened, and Mr Molyneux was announced. The ladies gasped (except Marjory Ffolliot, who had dissolved into helpless laughter at the sight of her large and portly parent draped in yards of double-width red and brown check), but Mrs Grantly was no whit abashed. "Look at me, Mr Molyneux," she cried. "Can you conceive any self-respecting young woman ever taking any pleasure in a garment made of _this_?" "A garment," the vicar repeated in wonderment, "is it for a garment?" "Yes, and not an undergarment either," Mrs Grantly retorted. "Now you are here, you shall tell us plainly . . . are the things we are to make supposed to give any pleasure to the poor creatures or not." "I should say so most assuredly," the vicar replied, his eyes twinkling with fun. "What other purpose could you have?" Miss Tibbits cleared her throat. "I have always understood," she said primly, "that the sewing club was instituted to make useful garments for deserving persons, who were, perhaps, so much occupied by family cares that they had little time available for needle-work." "That is," said the vicar solemnly, "the laudable object of the sewing club." "But I don't suppose," Mrs Grantly remarked briskly, still standing draped in the obnoxious material, "that there is any bye-law to the effect that the garments should be of an odious and humiliating description." "Of course not," the ladies chorussed, smiling. They were beginning, all but Miss Tibbits, who was furious, to enjoy Mrs Grantly. "Then let us," Mrs Grantly's voice suddenly became soft and seductive, and she flung the folds of material from her, "give them something pretty. They don't have much, poor things, and it's just as easy to make them pretty as ugly. Ladies, I've been to a good many sewing meetings in my life, and I always fight for the same thing, a present should be just a little bit different--don't you think--not hard and hideous and ordinary. . . ." "That material is bought and paid for," Miss Tibbits interrupted, "it must be used."