Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/137

 fact, had been a great admirer of Robert Ingersoll. As children, neither Ella nor Lou had been compelled to attend church or Sunday school. They had been brought up in an atmosphere of religious freedom conducive to the growth of liberal ideas or, as had really happened, of no ideas on the subject of religion at all. Either of the sisters would have felt outraged or at least offended had she been dubbed an atheist, but neither was by nature devout. Ella, later, when she married, through force of circumstances became a Roman Catholic, while Lou, with the eyes of the town upon her, continued to make sporadic attendances on the Universalist Church, and contributed liberally towards its rather uncertain maintenance and the small salary of the preacher, a tiresome old fellow, who, on all occasions, wore a threadbare, frock coat, disfigured by grease spots.

Within the week an evangelist had come to Maple Valley and was conducting services at the Methodist Episcopal Church. One morning, shortly after his arrival, Mrs. Fred Baker, a spare, meagre woman in a black alpaca dress, her bony shoulders hunched at an uncomfortably ugly angle under a dark-red ice-wool shawl, paid an unexpected visit to the Poores. There were no curves in her face, which was not unlike that of an ancient and disappointed bird, and her eyes were small and watery. Carrying a reticule and a bundle of tracts, she was ushered into the library where Lou was occupied examining house-