"Your sister, Eliza Ann, must have been a woman of strong character," said Joanna suggestively.
"Indeed she was, my dear, and no mistake. She was such a leading light in the Grampton circuit that it was considered due to her piety to ask her to do the cutting-out at the Dorcas-meeting. But piety and cutting-out don't always go together, more's the pity!"
"I suppose they don't."
"Far from it. There was once great distress in Grampton, owing to bad trade coupled with a deep snow; and Brother Phipson gave a roll of cloth to make clothes for ragged little boys; Brother Phipson being a cloth-merchant by nature and a circuit-steward by grace."
"It was very kind of him to give garments to the poor," said Joanna approvingly.
"He was but an unprofitable servant, like the rest of us," sighed Martha: "when we have done all we can, our righteousness is but filthy rags hanging on barren fig-trees."
"Did your sister cut out all the little boys' clothes?"
"Well, it was in this way, miss. Eliza Ann was such a saint that it would not have been seemly for any other member of the congregation to do the cutting-out while she was present. So she was appointed to the work. But her mind was so full of the last Sunday evening's sermon, that she cut out all the trousers for the same leg."
Joanna laughed outright. "I suppose she was in a great way when she found out what she had done."
"Not she, my dear," replied Martha, somewhat reprovingly, "Eliza Ann was far too religious a woman to own to anybody but her Maker that she had been in the wrong."