Read "Was I Right?" by O.F. Walton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
MISS IRVINE'S mission-room was a bright, cheerful place, and was very prettily decorated for the festive occasion. Texts cut out in red and in white paper, and wreaths of holly and ivy ornamented the walls; and the long tables, covered with white cloths, were spread with a most beautiful repast, which was arranged as prettily and tastefully as if it had been set out for a wedding breakfast.
The guests had all arrived when we went in, and were sitting at the tables, quietly admiring all around them. Poor tired mothers, many of them with babies in their arms; husbands, whose faces bore marks of care and toil, and many of whom showed plainly that drink and sin were bearing them down, and ruining their health and their homes; children, with pinched and unchildlike faces, were all gathered round the pretty tea-tables, looking forward to a happy evening in their unhappy lives. Most of the men were in working clothes, for they possessed no other's in which to come; but they had all made themselves as clean and tidy as they could, and seemed shyly and quietly happy.