“‘--that we have not been able to spend anything this fall for clothing, for we will not go in debt. We needed everything that is warm, for it is bitter cold out here. You can imagine how like a mockery the barrel seemed to me. We had even used the children’s candy money to finish paying the freight.’” From all over the house came shocked exclamations of “O-h! O-h!” “The children’s candy money!” “Shame!” “‘What I did was against my husband’s earnest wishes and entreaties. I know now that he was right and I was wrong; but oh, if the church at home could only be brought to see that what we need is not charity but honest pay! “Yours for the cause, “MARY C. HALORAN.” The president laid the letter down. “Ladies, I never was so humiliated in all my life! That our First Church----” “Madam President,” interrupted an incisive voice, “I should like to know who packed that barrel.” A woman in the second row turned upon her. “_I_ packed that barrel.” It was as categorical as question and answer anent Cock Robin. “I am willing to take my share of the blame--_and no more_. I put into that barrel exactly what was sent in, and--as our treasurer has most justly remarked--a disbursing agent can do no more.” “I haven’t said that she might not do less,” interpolated the treasurer. “If I had been attending to that job I should have packed most of those things into the furnace--or back to the owners.” All parliamentary procedure was now cast to the winds. They talked when and to whom they pleased. “I had no right to do anything of the kind,” defended the packer. “And I had no reason to assume that you would send me trash to pack.” “That’s right, too!” came a voice from the back. “I will give a word of explanation, Madam President, and then I am through--with this barrel and all others.” “Oh, no!” soothed the president; “you’ll pack another one for us sometime and we will do better.” “Indeed I won’t! I am through!... Well, as I say, I left my Christmas work while the rest of you were doing yours, and came down here to pack this barrel--simply because I had promised the president, in a weak moment, that I would do it. I was in a great hurry, and when I saw all these boxes and neat-looking packages I put them in without undoing anything. It was not my business to pass judgment on the things you had sent in.” Then in answer to numerous disclaimers: “You didn’t send them in? Well, somebody did! Who it was I don’t know and _nobody else does_. The sexton doesn’t, for I asked him.” There was a settling down from strained positions in various parts of the room. “When I sent off the barrel I considered that my part was done.”