‘Well, the sooner that good time comes the better,’ said Wentworth’s friend; ‘but we have female feasts in Sloville which do a great deal of harm.’
‘You amaze me,’ said Wentworth. ‘What do you call the feast?’
‘The Dorcas. It is a society made up of ladies who belonged to the congregation, and who worked at useful articles to be distributed among the poor, the ladies paying half a crown each to buy the material, and putting threepence into the plate handed round at each meeting, to be devoted to the same purpose. On the night when my wife attended, there was an unusually large attendance. The grocer’s wife believed in a good cup of tea, and butter which was not margarine, and in other dainties which her guests were not slow to appreciate. To her credit be it said that at no other house had the members such a really good tea. On these occasions a good deal of talk took place.
‘Said one, “Where is that Jane Brown?”
‘“Oh,” said another, “she said she could not leave her mother.”
‘“A pretty excuse,” said another. “I’ll be bound to say that if there was any entertainment going on she could manage to leave her mother for that.”
‘“Ah!” said another old lady, with a shake of her head, “girls are not what they used to be. I don’t know what we are coming to.”
‘“Oh, you may well say that,” said the deacon’s wife. “We are living in sad times. It quite grieved me to hear our minister say on Sunday that people believed in Christ. They never did, and they never will. The world will always hate Christ, because of its wickedness. It is only the elect that can be saved. The world, or rather the carnal heart, is always at emnity with God.”
‘“Yes, dear,” repeated the old lady, “you are right there; the wicked won’t come to Christ. It is not to be expected as they should.”
‘Then another interrupted with the remark: “That girl Smith is never seen in the chapel now.”