utter are not even inceptive and that holiness
is in its definitive essence always always always whole-iness and--"

It proved that the Essence of the Sun Spirit was Truth, but its Aura and
Effluxion were Cheerfulness:

"Face always the day with the dawn-laugh with the enthusiasm of the
initiate who perceives that all works together in the revolutions of
the Wheel and who answers the strictures of the Soured Souls of the
Destructionists with a Glad Affirmation--"

It went on for about an hour and seven minutes.

At the end Mrs. Mudge spoke with more vigor and punctuation:

"Now let me suggest to all of you the advantages of the Theosophical and
Pantheistic Oriental Reading Circle, which I represent. Our object is to
unite all the manifestations of the New Era into one cohesive whole--New
Thought, Christian Science, Theosophy, Vedanta, Bahaism, and the other
sparks from the one New Light. The subscription is but ten dollars
a year, and for this mere pittance the members receive not only the
monthly magazine, Pearls of Healing, but the privilege of sending right
to the president, our revered Mother Dobbs, any questions regarding
spiritual progress, matrimonial problems, health and well-being
questions, financial difficulties, and--"

They listened to her with adoring attention. They looked genteel. They
looked ironed-out. They coughed politely, and crossed their legs with
quietness, and in expensive linen handkerchiefs they blew their noses
with a delicacy altogether optimistic and refined.

As for Babbitt, he sat and suffered.

When they were blessedly out in the air again, when they drove home
through a wind smelling of snow and honest sun, he dared not speak. They
had been too near to quarreling, these days. Mrs. Babbitt forced it:

"Did you enjoy Mrs. Mudge's talk?"

"Well I--What did you get out of it?"

"Oh, it starts a person thinking. It gets you out of a routine of
ordinary thoughts."

"Well, I'll hand it to Opal she isn't ordinary, but gosh--Honest, did
that stuff mean anything to you?"

"Of course I'm not trained in metaphysics, and there was lots I couldn't
quite grasp, but I did feel it was inspiring. And she speaks so readily.
I do think you ought to have got something out of it."

"Well, I didn't! I swear, I was simply astonished, the way those women
lapped it up! Why the dickens they want to put in their time listening
to all that blaa when they--"

"It's certainly better for them than go