"Stout's Grocery," as the sign over the door read, was the scene—especially on rainy evenings—of many heated debates and windy harangues on topics as varied as New England weather. There was decided the policies of the great political parties; the characters of great or notorious men were weighed and analyzed; the worth, financial, mental, and moral, of the citizens of Manville—not present—were frankly estimated; and, alas, sometimes, the virtues and vices of women received the attention of the gathering of do-little busybodies.

It was raining. The prophecy had appeared in the evening paper, and it had come to pass that the prophecy and the elements were working harmoniously. Only a few brief words were devoted to it by those who had gathered at the store on this particular evening. Incense, in kind, was ascending in clouds to one of man's greatest gods—tobacco.

"How's that woman's club gettin' 'long?" Sam Billings asked without addressing any one in particular.

"I hear," replied Mr. Blake, the undertaker, "that they're doing first-rate. My wife has joined."

"You 'n' your wife are gettin' to be reg'lar jiners, ain't yer? B'long to 'most everything now," remarked Sam.

"Well, we like to keep in touch with what's going on in the world," replied Mr. Blake, modestly.

"Business is business," chuckled Sam. Mr. Blake made no reply to the insinuation. "What do they want a club for, anyway?" Sam continued. "Don't they have enough to do without gettin' together and stirrin' things up?"

"Perhaps it's because they want a change," suggested Alick Purbeck.

"Change?" sniffed Sam, scornfully. "What change do any of us get? We get up in the morning every day at the same time, eat our breakfast, go to work, eat our dinner, go to work, eat our supper, and—sometimes we come down here and swap lies, and—"

"There's your change," interrupted Mr. Blake. "At our work most of us men meet different people, we see new faces and new things, but the women stay at home, wash, sew, cook, care for the children, and never know when the day is done unless they look at the clock—then they're not always sure."

"There ain't any use tryin' to argue with you," replied Sam. "What are they goin' to do at this club that'll give 'em a change?"

"Well," said Mr. Blake, "I understand that they're going to give a play, study art, science, and so forth, and give social affairs that will bring the people together in a way that will benefit us all."

"Ump! I'd like to know how they'll do me any good," grunted Sam.

"Well," smiled Mr. Blake, "I can't think of anything at this moment that they could do to make you any better or worse, but when women set out to do anything I've noticed that they generally get there."

"You're right about that," said Sam, wagging his head, "they are persistent critters."

"Perhaps if you were married you'd have more respect for women," added Mr. Blake.

"Maybe his weddin' ain't so very far off," said Alick Purbeck. "I've seen him in comp'ny with the same lady three times within a week."

"Jest happened so," retorted Sam.

"Gettin' married jest happens sometimes," replied Alick.

"When a woman ketches me," said Sam, boastfully, "she's got to be mighty fetchin' in more ways 'n one."

"If there's any catching to be done, I guess you'll have to do it," commented Mr. Blake.

Sam felt that he was getting the worst of the argument, and changed the subject.

"What kind of a show are they goin' to give?" he asked.

"Scenes from the classics," replied Mr. Blake.

"Is it a good play?" Sam innocently inquired. Mr. Blake began to explain, but before he had finished the door was opened and Ezra Tweedie came in.

"Evenin', Ezra," said Peter Stout, from his seat on the counter.

"Good evening, gentlemen," replied Ezra, with a queer little nod, and then giving Peter a slip of paper, added, "Kindly put up those things for me, Mr. Stout."

"Certain," said Peter, as he slid off the counter.

While waiting for his order to be put up, Ezra sat down with the group of tobacco slaves. Ezra did not smoke himself, his health would not permit it, so he said, but everybody knew that the disapproval of Aurelia Scraggs Tweedie was all that kept him from the use of the seductive narcotic. He liked to be smoked, however, and was always delighted when his wife sent him to the store in the evening. And the men, the smokers, liked Ezra—and pitied him.

"How's things with you, Ezra?" asked Sam when Ezra was comfortably seated.

"About the same, thank you," Ezra cheerfully replied.

"Here's the man," Sam went on, "that can tell us all about the woman's club, can't you, Ezra?"

"Well," Ezra began, with a cough and a smile, "I cannot say that I know all about it, but naturally I do know something, perhaps a little more than any other of our sex." "Our sex" was the offspring of his wife's favourite term, the "other sex." Ezra was so seldom the centre of interest, or the source of information, that the position which he held at that moment pleased him immensely.

"Your wife has been chosen president, I believe," said Mr. Blake.

"Yes," replied Ezra, proudly, "and she was the one who conceived the idea, the founder, one could justly say."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Sam.

Ezra smiled a broader smile as he looked at the interested, open-mouthed men about him. Very likely he thought that the next best thing to being a man himself was to have a manly wife.

"What did you say?" Ezra asked, turning toward Peter, who had spoken from the depths of a sugar-barrel.

"Green tea, or black?" said Peter as he withdrew his head and shoulders from the barrel, his face very red.

"Oh, green and black mixed, please," replied Ezra, and then picking up the thread of the conversation where he had dropped it continued: "Yes, Mrs. Tweedie founded the club, and is now its president. I feel confident that it is going to be a grand thing for our town."

"How's that?" Sam asked, hoping to "set Ezra a-goin'," as he would have expressed it.

"How?" repeated Ezra. "By lifting us out of the mire of ignorance, by encouraging social intercourse, in fact, by broadening us in every way."

"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Sam.

"Yes, sir, I do mean it." Ezra did mean it at the time he spoke, notwithstanding sentiments that he had previously expressed to the contrary.

"What'd I tell you, Sam?" said Alick, vauntingly, and turning to Ezra, added: "Sam, here, Mr. Tweedie, has been runnin' women folks down, and we told him it was because he wasn't married."

"And you were right, Alick; a man who is unmarried is not competent to judge women," Ezra replied.

"And a man that is married don't dare to," retorted Sam.

The entrance of Doctor Jones at that moment saved Sam from a severe tongue-lashing from the married men present.

The doctor was a jolly, generous soul who did twice as much work as he was paid for, and was loved and hated after the manner of all general practitioners of medicine. There were people in Manville who declared that Doctor Jones could work miracles, while others said that he was a butcher and a murderer; but men who have the courage to fight disease and death are not often disturbed or injured by the wagging of mischievous tongues.

"Well," said the doctor, as he sat down, "who is catching it to-night?"

"The woman's club," Sam promptly replied.

"The town is more stirred up over that club than it ever was about anything before," laughed the doctor.

"Now, seein' we've got the question before us," said Sam, "s'pose you give us your opinion."

"Oh, the club is all right, I guess," replied the doctor.

"There, Sam," said Alick, "I guess you're the only woman-hater in the crowd."

"I ain't no woman-hater," replied Sam, indignantly.

"No," Alick laughed, "but you try to make us think you are."

"No such thing; all I want to know is, what's this woman's club for, and how's it goin' to help Manville?"

"Well," drawled Alick, "it's for the women, and it's goin' to help Manville by showin' you what an ignorant cuss you be."

Sam threw a potato at his tormentor, but Alick dodged, and the missile knocked off Ezra Tweedie's hat.

"No offence, Mr. Tweedie," said Alick, quickly, "strictly unintentional."

"No harm, no harm," replied Ezra, as he got up and put on his hat; "but I guess it is time for me to go if my things are ready, Mr. Stout."

Peter handed Ezra his basket, and then whispered something in his ear. "Certainly, certainly," said Ezra, "it shall be attended to the first of the week." And then turning to the others wished them, "Good evening, gentlemen," walked quickly to the door, and went out.

"Ain't he the queerest little man you ever see?" observed Sam, when Ezra had gone.

"Queer!" replied Alick, "he ain't any queerer in his way than you are in yours."

"Well, I dunno; he's a little too womanish to suit me," said Sam.

"If you had a streak of it in you perhaps you'd show off better." Just then the door was opened, and Barbara Wallace came in and started toward the group of men, hesitated for a moment, and then stopped. The men took the pipes from their mouths and stared at the woman in dripping garments. She was evidently in great distress and looking for some one, but the tobacco smoke was so thick, and the light so dim, that it was difficult for her to distinguish the faces of the men present. Doctor Jones got up and went toward her.

"Are you looking for some one, Miss Wallace?" he asked.

"Yes, doctor, I wanted you, and I hoped"—her voice trembled—"I hoped to find Mr. Blake here, too." When the undertaker heard his name he joined them.

"Who is it?" asked the doctor, anxiously. He had thought that his patients were in no danger, at least for the night. Tears came to Barbara's eyes.

"Bessie Duncan," she replied.

"Are you sure that she is—" the doctor hesitated.

"Yes, but you'll go, doctor, and you, too, won't you, Mr. Blake?" Barbara pleaded. The expression on the undertaker's face was not encouraging. "I know about the others," she continued, "but they have had such a hard time, please go—for me, Mr. Blake. I'll—I—you can come to me for the money."

"I'll go," said Mr. Blake; "never mind about the money."

"Come," was all that Barbara said as she started for the door followed by the two men. The three went out into the rain and the darkness of the night on their cheerless errand.

The talkers at the store were silent for a long time after that. They had heard all that was said, though it was far from Barbara's intention that they should, but she had been so eager to secure the assistance of the doctor and Mr. Blake that she had thought only of them.

"So Miss Wallace wants to pay the bills of that mean, drunken skunk of a Rufe Duncan," said Sam, fiercely.

"That ain't any of your business," retorted Alick. "If she wants to have the little girl buried decent, what's the harm?"

"'Tain't her place," replied Sam, more for the sake of an argument than because he believed it. "What do you say, Peter?"

"I say," Peter began, slowly, "I've heard about angels with wings, but the only kind I've ever seen is just such little women as Miss Wallace is."