“To be a sufferer, shut in from the outside world, constitutes one a proper candidate for membership in this Society. All members are requested to send with their application, if possible, the name of their pastor or their physician, or of some Associate of the Society, as introduction; and no name should be forwarded for membership until the individual has been consulted and consent obtained. If able, members are expected to pay 50 cents yearly for The Open Window. Any who are unable will please inform the Secretary.
“As this is not an almsgiving society, its members are requested not to apply for money or other material aid to the officers, Associates, or other members. Any assistance which can be given in the way of remunerative work will be cheerfully rendered.
“Members are not to urge upon any one in the Society the peculiar belief of any particular sect or denomination.
“Associate members are not themselves invalids, but, being in tender sympathy with the suffering, volunteer in this ministry of love for Jesus’ sake.”
Mrs. Lane had been an Associate member from the time of the organization of the Society in 1877. Jean Draper Prince, coming to Nettie’s chamber upon the Shut-In’s last birthday, and finding her with a tableful and lapful of mail packages, had told her that Mrs. Lane had given her the biggest “outing” any girl in the village ever had.
Nettie had fifteen regular correspondents, and never a week passed that she was not touched by an appeal for letters and did not write an extra letter to some one not on her “list.” The wool slippers in her work-basket she had finished to-day for a Shut-In birthday gift next month. Every night in her prayer she gave thanks for the blessings that widened and brightened her life through “the dear Shut-In Society.”
As she sat reading her magazine, too deep in it to hear a sound, light feet ran up the narrow stairway. She did not lift her eyes until Pet Draper, Jean’s youngest sister, pushed the door open.
“Why, Pet,” she exclaimed. “Are you out in this storm?”
“No,” laughed Pet, “I am _in_ in this storm. I came to stay all night.”
“I shouldn’t think you _would_ want to go out again to-night.”
“Oh, it isn’t so bad. The snow is light. Joe brought me,” she said, with sudden meaning in her tones.