e it;
he had a gift for argumentation and he exercised it; he had a way with
the ladies and he used it. His coming had created a social furor; his
subsequent ministrations amounted to what for lack of a better word is
commonly called a sensation.

If there were those who from motives, let us say, of envy looked with
the jaundiced eye of disfavor upon his mounting popularity and his
constantly widening scope of influence they mainly kept their own
counsel or at least refrained from voicing their private prejudices in
public places. One gets fewer bumps traveling with the crowd than
against it.

Even so bold a spirit and customarily so outspoken a speaker as Aunt
Dilsey Turner, Judge Priest's black cook of many years' incumbency, saw
fit somewhat to dissemble on the occasion of a call paid by Sister
Eldora Menifee, who came dressed to kill and inspired by the zeal of the
new convert to win yet other converts. Entering by way of the alley gate
one fine forenoon, Sister Eldora found Aunt Dilsey sitting in the
kitchen doorway hulling out a mess of late green peas newly picked from
the house garden.

"Sist' Turner," began the visitor, "I hopes I ain't disturbin' you by
runnin' in on you this mawnin'."

"Honey," said Aunt Dilsey, "you're jes' ez welcome ez day is frum night.
Lemme fetch you a cheer out yere on the gallery." And she made as if to
heave her vast comfortable bulk upright.

"No'm, set right where you is," begged Sister Menifee. "I ain't got only
jes' a few minutes to stay. Things is mighty pressin' with me. I got
quite a number of my lady frien's to see to-day an' you happens to be
the fust one on de list."

"Is tha' so?" inquired Aunt Dilsey. Her tone was cordiality itself, but
one less carried away by the enthusiasm of the mission which had brought
her than Sister Eldora Menifee was might have caught a latent gleam of
hostility in the elder woman's eye. "Well, go on, Ise lis'enin'."

"Well, Sist' Turner, ef you's heared 'bout de work I been doin' lately
I reckin mebbe you kin guess whut brung me to yore do'. I is solicitin'
you fur yore fellership ez a reg'lar member of de ladies' auxiliary of
de new s'ciety w'ich Doct' J. Talbott Duvall is got up."

"Meanin' perzactly w'ich s'ciety? Dis yere Doct' Duvall 'pears to be so
busy gittin' up fust one thing an' then 'nother seems lak I ain't been
able to keep track of his doin's, 'count of my bein' so slow gittin'
round on my feet by reason of de rheumatism.