Miss Gibbie Gault | Page 4

Gault, listening with her hand on the knob, tilted her
chin and screwed up her left eye so tightly that it seemed but a little
round hole, and at sight of it some of the ladies brightened visibly,
while others fidgeted in nervous apprehension of what might come.
Miss Gibbie came farther in the room, laid her bag and turkey-wing fan
on the table over which Mrs. Pryor was presiding, and, without a
good-morning to the others, took her seat and began the pulling-off of
her white cotton gloves.
"What's all this nonsense about St. Paul and women, Lizzie?" she began,
laying the gloves by the bag and taking up the fan. "I heard that last
remark, but Mr. Pryor didn't. Do you ever tell Mr. Pryor about St.
Paul's opinions? I hope, some of these eternal times, I am going to
know St. Paul. His epistles don't speak of a wife, but I've always
imagined he had one, and of the kind who didn't agree with you, Lizzie,
that women should keep silent and learn of their husbands at home--
like you learn of yours."
The white ribbon strings which tied Miss Gibbie's broad-brimmed
white straw hat under her chin were unfastened and thrown back over
her shoulders, the sprig muslin skirt was spread out carefully, and the
turkey-wing fan lifted from her lap, but for a moment Mrs. Pryor did
not speak.
Her face, not given to flushing, had colored at Miss Gibbie's words.
She pressed her lips firmly together and looked around the room as if
asking for Christian forbearance for so irreverent a speech as had just
been heard; then she rose.
"I do not care to discuss St. Paul. When a woman sits in judgment upon
one of the disciples of the Lord--"
"Don't get your Biblical history mixed, Lizzie. St. Paul was not one of
the twelve. He was an apostle, a writer of epistles. I admire him, but,
from his assertions concerning women, he must have had some in his
family who gave him trouble. Whenever you hear a man in public
insisting on keeping women in their place, keeping them down and

under, not letting them do this or letting them do that, you may be
certain he is a managed man. But if you won't discuss St. Paul with a
sinner such as I, we willgo back to the person you were discussing, and
I will discuss her with Christians such as you. Who was it? If it wasn't
Mary Cary I will give ten dollars to your heathen fund." She looked
around the room and then at Mrs. Webb. "Was it Mary Cary, Virginia?"
Mrs. Webb, biting a strand of cotton held at arm's-length from the spool,
nodded, then threaded her needle.
"Yes, we were talking about her work here in Yorkburg, and Mrs.
Pryor was telling us she had engaged the General Maury to take the
orphan children to Wayne Beach on the fourteenth, and--"
"Lizzie wanted to know where the money was coming from? For a
Christian woman, Lizzie, your curiosity in money matters is
unrighteous. If money is honestly come by, what business is it of ours
how it is spent?"
"Why doesn't she tell how it is come by?" Mrs. Pryor's voice was high
and sharp. "Mary Cary has been back in Yorkburg seven months--"
"Seven months and two weeks," corrected Mrs. Tate, pointing her
unthreaded needle at Mrs. Pryor.
"She was a penniless orphan until thirteen"--the interruption was
ignored--"and, so far as we've heard, she has never had a fortune left
her, and yet after nine years' absence she comes back, has a beautiful
home, a horse, and a runabout, keeps three servants, gives to everything,
spends freely, and never tells how she gets the money."
"And that's something good people will never forgive, will they,
Lizzie?"
Miss Gibbie Gault leaned forward and tapped the table on which Mrs.
Pryor's hands were resting with the tip of the turkey-wing fan. "Though
one feeds the hungry and clothes the naked, brings cleanliness out of
dirt, and gladness where was dulness, makes flowers grow where were

weeds, it profiteth nothing--if one's business is not told. Be honest,
Lizzie. Isn't that so?"
Mrs. Moon glanced anxiously at the clock on the mantel just under the
portrait of Mrs. Tate's great-grandfather, and hurriedly folded her work.
She never came to a meeting of the Needlework Guild if she thought it
likely Miss Gibbie would be there. But Miss Gibbie was even less
regular than Miss Honoria Brockenborough, and her attendance to-day
was evidently for a purpose. By herself Miss Gibbie was an Occasion, a
visit to her was an experience that gave color and life to the dullest of
days, and she did not deny her enjoyment of Miss Gibbie's comments