Connie stood solemnly beside the table, her eyes still fastened on the coat, cut down from her father’s.  “Can I go and take a walk?” she asked finally.

“May I, you mean,” suggested Fairy.

“Yes, may I?  Maybe I can reconcile myself to it.”

“Yes, do go and take a walk,” urged Prudence promptly, eager to get the small sober face beyond her range of vision.

“If I am not back when the twins get home, go right on and eat without me.  I’ll come back when I get things straightened out in my mind.”

When Connie was quite beyond hearing, Prudence dropped her head on the table and wept.  “Oh, Fairy, if the members just knew how such things hurt, maybe they’d pay up a little better.  How do they expect parsonage people to keep up appearances when they haven’t any money?”

“Oh, now, Prue, you’re worse than Connie!  There’s no use to cry about it.  Parsonage people have to find happiness in spite of financial misery.  Money isn’t the first thing with folks like us.”

“No, but they have pledged it,” protested Prudence, lifting her tear-stained face.  “They must know we are counting on the money.  Why don’t they keep their pledges?  They pay their meat bills, and grocery bills, and house rent!  Why don’t they pay for their religion?”

“Now, Prue, you know how things go.  Mrs. Adams is having a lot of Christmas expense, and she thinks her four dollars a month won’t really be missed.  She thinks she will make it up along in February, when Christmas is over.  But she forgets that Mrs. Barnaby with two dollars, and Mrs. Scott with five, and Mr. Walter with seven, and Mr. Holmes with three, and about thirty others with one dollar each, are thinking the same thing!  Each member thinks for himself, and takes no account of the others.  That’s how it happens.”

Prudence squirmed uncomfortably in her chair.  “I wish you wouldn’t mention names, Fairy,” she begged.  “I do not object to lumping them in a body and wondering about them.  But I can’t feel right about calling them out by name, and criticizing them.—­Besides, we do not really know which ones they are who did not pay.”

“I was just giving names for illustrative purposes,” said Fairy quickly.  “Like as not, the very ones I named are the ones who did pay.”

“Well, get this stuff out of the way, and let’s set the table.  Somehow I can’t bear to touch it any more.  Poor little Connie!  If she had cried about it, I wouldn’t have cared so much.  But she looked so—­heartsick, didn’t she, Fairy?”

Connie certainly was heartsick.  More than that, she was a little disgusted.  She felt herself aroused to take action.  Things had gone too far!  Go to church in her father’s coat she could not!  But they hadn’t the money.  If Connie’s father had been at home, perhaps they might have reasoned it out together.  But he had left town that morning, and would not be home