"La, yes!" responded that Christian lady; "that's an old story, everybody knows."
"Why, I never heard of it before," said Miss Jerusha, pinning a little blue bow on the top of the muslin cap, to make it look tasty, as she observed.
"Neither did I," answered Mrs. Sykes, casting, as we thought, but it could not be, however, a glance of malicious triumph on Mrs. Fleetfoot; "but he travelled home in company with Mrs. Orville's visitors, and I often see him walking on the lake-shore with the young, unmarried lady, Miss Josephine, I believe, is her name; and I just thought in my own mind that would be a match."
"Very likely," said Miss Jerusha.
"Well, I remember now, 'twas that strange lady I heard he was engaged to, and not Miss Alice," remarked Fleetfoot, with perfect equanimity; "and Alice, they say, has got a beau off south, and that's what makes her so mopish at times."
"Perhaps it is as sister Fleetfoot says," observed Jerusha; "for Alice is certainly changed from what she used to be. She never attends our circle now, and seldom goes to church. I wonder how she does pass her time?"
"'Tis more than I can tell," answered Mrs. Sykes; "there was always something mysterious about those Orvilles, to me. But I shall be obliged to go home, sister Jerusha, to attend to my work, as I've no servant," continued the wronged lady, rising, and depositing her work in the treasurer's box.
"I'm sorry you must go, sister Sykes," said Jerusha; "but be of good cheer, and I'll drop in and see you in the course of the week."
"Pray, do, sister Sharpwell; I need all the aid and sympathy of Christian hearts to sustain my soul," said Mrs. Sykes, with a ruefully pious countenance, as she took her departure.
The meeting progressed. Fast flew the nimble fingers of the devoted laborers in the good cause; and could the poor heathen have known what mighty exertions this band of benevolent, self-denying females, who basked in the noontide glory of the sun of righteousness, were making for their liberation from the thrall of pagan darkness and superstition, we doubt not that they would have prostrated themselves by millions before the shrine of their great idol, Juggernaut, and devoutly invoked him to pardon and forgive the poor, deluded victims of a false religion, and bring them all under his sublime sway and holy dominion.