and, and knew something more than
running a farm successfully. Of all of which the deacon was perfectly
well aware, and still he had not been moved by the merging spirit of
the age to propose consolidation.

This interesting situation was up for discussion at the Wednesday
afternoon meeting of the Sisters' Sewing Society.

"For my part," Sister Susan Spicer, wife of the Methodist minister,
remarked as she took another tuck in a fourteen-year-old girl's skirt
for a ten-year-old--"for my part, I can't see why Deacon Hawkins and
Kate Stimson don't see the error of their ways and depart from them."

"I rather guess _she_ has," smiled Sister Poteet, the grocer's better
half, who had taken an afternoon off from the store in order to be
present.

"Or is willing to," added Sister Maria Cartridge, a spinster still
possessing faith, hope, and charity, notwithstanding she had been on
the waiting list a long time.

"Really, now," exclaimed little Sister Green, the doctor's wife, "do
you think it is the deacon who needs urging?"

"It looks that way to me," Sister Poteet did not hesitate to affirm.

"Well, I heard Sister Clark say that she had heard him call her
'Kitty' one night when they were eating ice-cream at the Mite
Society," Sister Candish, the druggist's wife, added to the fund of
reliable information on hand.

"'Kitty,' indeed!" protested Sister Spicer. "The idea of anybody
calling Kate Stimson 'Kitty'! The deacon will talk that way to 'most
any woman, but if she let him say it to her more than once, she must
be getting mighty anxious, I think."

"Oh," Sister Candish hastened to explain, "Sister Clark didn't say she
had heard him say it twice.'"

"Well, I don't think she heard him say it once," Sister Spicer
asserted with confidence.

"I don't know about that," Sister Poteet argued. "From all I can see
and hear I think Kate Stimson wouldn't object to 'most anything the
deacon would say to her, knowing as she does that he ain't going to
say anything he shouldn't say."

"And isn't saying what he should," added Sister Green, with a sly
snicker, which went around the room softly.

"But as I was saying--" Sister Spicer began, when Sister Poteet, whose
rocker, near the window, commanded a view of the front gate,
interrupted with a warning, "'Sh-'sh."

"Why shouldn't I say what I wanted to when--" Sister Spicer began.

"There she comes now," explained Sister Poteet, "and as I live the
deacon drove her here in h