FOLLOWERS OF DORCAS.

A

BY M. F. QUINLAN.

LL the morning I wrote hard-an article had to be finished. In the afternoon I had a Dorcas meeting. To be candid, I much prefer to handle a pen or a pencil than a needle; for, after several futile attempts at threading it, I am obliged to admit failure. Yet with a gun I can shoot straight. But, as one conscious of her own limitations, I usually adhere to a darning needle, which has an ogling eye, and-I live in dread of a weekly exposure. Feminine women are relentless; and the sewing woman it were well to propitiate.

Therefore, though I myself hate work parties, I find, as a social worker among the poorer brethren, that a work party is not only expedient but essential. And, as a necessary conse quence, I am in charge of it. The situation is not without humor to my friends.

For myself, I may confess that I dread that Tabitha meeting, as some do the bailiff. And before I have anything prepared the bell rings; after which feminine people arrive, in a thin trickle, for the rest of the afternoon. Social amenities over, I see their eyes sweeping the room for cut out garments the feminine women always expect everything to be cut out and pinned, on their arrival.

This instantly forces me into an apologetic attitude, which I may say is quite abnormal to me. Human life, as I venture to remind them, consists of many illusions and a few disillusions. "Which means to say?"-the followers of Dorcas are all practical.

"Which means to say," I continue, "that, as a matter of theory, the garments are all cut out and ready. But practically" Well! it somehow transpires that the Providence which provides for the sparrow has that day spurned the Dorcas party.

"Then have you nothing for us to do?" says the party coldly.

"After

"The case is happily not so extreme," I answer. all, there's always flannelette." And I indicate a gaudy pile, which, at the first sound of the doorbell, I had hastily thrown. on the table.

The work party does not seem to view the flannelette with much enthusiasm.

"It is strange to think-" I pause and gaze abstractedly through the flannelette. Then I realize that every one is standing. "Oh! do sit down"; and I sort out thimbles and reels of cotton.

"What is strange ?" says some one. Whereupon I sink back into my reflections.

"Well, I was thinking of the mysteries of the sculptor's

art."

"My dear," says one girl soothingly, "this is a sewing party." Ignoring this remark, I continue my soliloquy.

"Did you ever realize how, for thousands of years, the Greek masterpieces lay embedded in the solid marble? And it was only when the hand of a Phidias was laid upon it, that an immortal form sprang into life-" Here some Dorcas interrupts :

"What has Phidias to do with orphans' knickers ?"

"Phidias merely points the moral," I say reproachfully. "For, as the immortal god lay asleep in the rough marble, the orphans' knickers lie intact in that roll of flannelette." I fix one girl in my eye, and push over a pair of scissors:

"Emulate the Hindu," I urge, "and thus acquire merit." She murmurs something about the superfluous human beings to whom fate has introduced her.

"Of course," I admit, "from the utilitarian point of view, Phidias pales before Dorcas, who, as you remember, was raised to life in Joppe, because she made coats for the poor."

My friend is apparently not carried away by the prowess of the said Dorcas. She merely rolls out the gaudy flannelette with a thoughtful expression.

"Pins!" is her only remark.

"Pins? oh, yes"; I gaze round helplessly into space. "Does any one know where I put the pins ?"

The work meeting sits round the table, solemn-eyed and

disapproving; but they say nothing. Hastily I feel myself all over and then prick my finger, which twinge reminds me that I had purposely stuck them in my blouse.

"I was so afraid of forgetting them," I say pleasantly. But the party with difficulty conceals its scorn. At this juncture I feel a little depressed. However, I extract the pins with care, and lay them on the table. There are three pins in all, one being bent.

"This one," I say with some feeling, as I examine the third pin, "is unfortunately suffering from some spinal complaint possibly curvature. Some day, when I've time, I'm thinking of trying the curative effects of massage."

Meanwhile I lay the crippled pin in an easy position on its back. Then all at once I become conscious of a growing chill in the social atmosphere. The Dorcas party is grimly silent.

"Three pins," says a long suffering Tabitha, “three pins— among six women. And this is cutting-out day!"

The party exchange glances, and I know I am being voted out of the meeting-a vote which, however silently put, is unanimously carried. Feeling that something must be done, I ring the bell and ask for the matron to send up the basket of mending. This move temporarily relieves the tension, and gives the work party something to do. I feel I am now saved from public reprobation. But just then a dear woman, whom I really love, takes from her wrist-bag a packet of needles and lays it down on the shiny mahogany table as if she were offering up a holocaust on a pagan altar.

"I knew you wouldn't have any needles," she says gently. "You never do."

At this intelligence I feel just a little pained, for though I claim no real kinship with Dorcas of happy and useful memory, still I was under the impression that I invariably did my duty by the weekly work-meeting.

"Last time you had one," said this gentle friend of doom, "it was a darning needle-with its head knocked off. Besides that, it was rusty."

On reflection, I acknowledge the truth of this awful indict

ment.

"But if you only knew-" Here I address the meeting in a body. "If you only knew the things that are swallowed

by the genus orphan. I assure you that the species is absolutely rapacious in its habits. Stew, biscuits, pins-anything! It is all one to the orphan."

"What it is to be a Celt, and imaginative!" The remark comes from the midst of some pink flannelette.

"I'd advise you to study the book of Solomon," says another.

May I ask why ?" By this time I am on my dignity. "Because Solomon went so far as to say: 'Be not ready to make any manner of lie-for the custom thereof is not good.'

"I mentioned sculpture just now," this by way of beginning a conversation again, because my friend is still cutting out. "I was once in a sculptor's studio. It was in Florence. Oh, yes; and, now that I remember it, the sculptor was an American, and he very kindly wanted to make me into a marble bust; only my father did not tell me until we had traveled so far north that it was impossible to return." I sigh dreamily at the recollection. "However," I continue in a practical tone, "the work of the studio was fascinating."

"What was it like ?" asked some one.

"Well, it was rather like uncovering the dead. I mean, that when you saw it from one point of view it looked like nothing at all. Then you walked round to the other side of the huge block of marble and there, as yet half covered, was the most exquisite human face, white as death. It was Nydia, the blind girl of Pompeii. She lay asleep in the protecting marble as if she knew it could shelter her throughout the ages; she seemed as if she were but awaking from some magic spell. As yet she was still imprisoned in the rough stone; but already her hands had been freed-those sensitive hands which are given only to the blind-and she stretched them out rejoicing, as if in search of to-day. It didn't seem to me as if the American sculptor had much to do with the girl, beyond digging her out from her surroundings. And you know, Tabitha "this to the sartorial artist-"that I have the same feeling about those orphans' knickers. To my mind, they lie in that flannelette-only waiting to be dug out."

"Well, of all the ingratitude!" she begins.

"On the contrary," I hasten to say. "Ars artium celare artem, as the ancients say. You have the hand of an artist"; whereat the cutter-out is mollified.

Just then a charming literary woman comes in. She did not anticipate such domestication as a Dorcas party

and we consent to overlook the intrusion. She confesses that

she felt depressed, and so she came. But after a while, possibly due to the clink of thimbles and the babble of tongues, she becomes more cheerful.

"Do you know," she says in surprise, "I always thought that social workers were gloomy to the last degree." No one takes it up, so she turns to me.

"So we are," I acquiesce, "but we don't always give way to it." She laughs.

"Now yesterday," I confess, "I was a victim to gloomimpenetrable gloom." The literary woman becomes instantly sympathetic.

"Imagine," I begin, "just imagine-a smart costume from a smart tailor—'

"Well! there's nothing gloomy about that," she protested. "Listen!" I say authoritatively; "it didn't fit.”

"Ob," said every one. They all knew that feeling. "Furthermore, I paid for it on delivery."

"You reckless person!" said the Dorcas party.

the tailor's label and longed to see his creation. So I put it

on."

"Isn't it tragic ?' I asked her.

"It is wicked,' she said with finality.

Send it back.'

It was

"Her suggestion struck me as sound; therefore, I packed it up again. Then we wrote a joint note to the firm. a marvel in composition."

"Haven't you kept a copy?" asks the literary woman. I shook my head.

"I was afraid of writer's cramp. Yes; I must have written him over 3,050 words; of which three thousand were consigned to the waste-paper basket. The difficulty was to write something that satisfied us both. For my part, I urged restraint as suggestive of greater power. But Lady agree to it.

'didn't

Therefore letter after letter had to be torn up

before we settled down to compromises.

"Now,' said Lady

'what is the exact position?'

"The exact position is this: I refuse to wear the costume

and I could slay the man that made it!'