ad her circumstances
permitted, would have been a Scripture-reader or at least a district
visitor. But the world was so much with her, in the shape of domestic
necessities at Bellevue Lodge, as to render parish work impossible, and
so the Dorcas meeting was the only systematic philanthropy in which she
could venture to indulge. But in the discharge of this duty she was
regularity personified; neither wind nor rain, snow nor heat, sickness
nor amusement, stopped her, and she was to be found each and every
Saturday afternoon, from three to five, in the National School.

If the Dorcas Society was a duty for the little old lady, it was also a
pleasure--one of her few pleasures, and perhaps the greatest. She liked
the meetings, because on such occasions she felt herself to be the equal
of her more prosperous neighbours. It is the same feeling that makes
the half-witted attend funerals and church services. At such times they
feel themselves to be for once on an equal footing with their
fellow-men: all are reduced to the same level; there are no speeches to
be made, no accounts to be added up, no counsels to be given, no
decisions to be taken; all are as fools in the sight of God.

At the Dorcas meeting Miss Joliffe wore her "best things" with the
exception only of head-gear, for the wearing of her best bonnet was a
crowning grace reserved exclusively for the Sabbath. Her wardrobe was
too straightened to allow her "best" to follow the shifting seasons
closely. If it was bought as best for winter, it might have to play the
same role also in summer, and thus it fell sometimes to her lot to wear
alpaca in December, or, as on this day, to be adorned with a fur necklet
when the weather asked for muslin. Yet "in her best" she always felt
"fit to be seen"; and when it came to cutting out, or sewing, there were
none that excelled her.

Most of the members greeted her with a kind word, for even in a place
where envy, hatred and malice walked the streets arm in arm from sunrise
to sunset, Miss Euphemia had few enemies. Lying and slandering, and
speaking evil of their fellows, formed a staple occupation of the ladies
of Cullerne, as of many another small town; and to Miss Joliffe, who was
foolish and old-fashioned enough to think evil of no one, it had seemed
at first the only drawback of these delightful meetings that a great
deal of such highly-spiced talk was to be heard at them. But even this
fly was afterwards removed fr