Things were languishing just
then, and Mrs. Haile looked at Miss Emmeline almost imploringly:
would she, could she, give the ladies a little lecture?--tell us
things first-hand, so to speak?
Miss Emmeline reflected. She looked at Alicia and me.
"Could we have it in your delightful library?" she wondered. "That
beautiful old room has a soul which speaks to mine. Dear Miss Smith,
would it be too much to ask you to let me have my little talk, a
very informal little lecture, in wonderful old Hynds House?"
Mrs. Haile turned a sort of greenish pink. It wasn't for her to
suggest, after that, that it might be better to have the lecture in
the parsonage; any more than for me to hint, without ungraciousness,
that it might be just as well not to have it in Hynds House. Alicia
shot me one quizzical, Irish-blue glance when I said, "Yes."
And that's how, on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, all Hyndsville came
to Hynds House to hear Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons tell them "How
to Reach the Women of the East." Somehow, I rather think they were
as curious about two Yankee women as they were about those Eastern
women of whom Miss Emmeline was talking.
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