in the nature of things, disappear, for it is charming; it is
innocent with the innocence of very good, simple women; it is at the
same time subtle with that inimitable subtlety which only such women
can achieve. It is petty finance on such a moral height that even the
sufferers by its code must look up to it. Before even woman, showing
anything except a timid face of discovery at the sights of New York
under male escort, invaded Wall Street, the church fair was in full
tide, and the managers thereof might have put financiers to shame by
the cunning, if not magnitude, of their operations. Good Christian
women, mothers of families, would sell a tidy of no use except to
wear to a frayed edge the masculine nerves, and hand-painted plates
of such bad art that it verged on immorality, for prices so above all
reason, that a broker would have been taken aback. And it was all for
worthy objects, these pretty functions graced by girls and matrons in
their best attire, with the products of their little hands offered,
or even forced, upon the outsider who was held up for the ticket.
They gambled shamelessly to buy a new carpet for the church. There
was plain and brazen raffling for dreadful lamps and patent rockers
and dolls which did not look fit to be owned by nice little
girl-mothers, and all for the church organ, the minister's salary and
such like. Of this description was the church fair held in Brookville
to raise money to pay the Reverend Wesley Elliot. He came early, and
haunted the place like a morbid spirit. He was both angry and shamed
that such means must be employed to pay his just dues, but since it
had to be he could not absent himself.

There was no parlor in the church, and not long after the infamous
exit of Andrew Bolton the town hall had been destroyed by fire.
Therefore all such functions were held in a place which otherwise was
a source of sad humiliation to its owner: Mrs. Amos Whittle, the