CHAPTER VII.

TABLE TALK.

"What is your private explanation of the word 'hotel'?" Marion asked. She was in an argumentative mood, and it made almost no difference to her which side of the question she argued. "Webster says it is a place to entertain strangers, but you seem to attach some special importance to the term."

"Is that all that Webster says?"

The questioner was not Ruth, but a man who sat just opposite to them at the table, and while he waited for his order to be filled watched with amused eyes the four gills who were evidently in a new element. He was not a young man, and his gray hairs would have arrested the pertness of the reply on Marion's tongue at any other time than this, but you remember that she was not in a good mood. She answered promptly; "Yes, sir, he says ever so many things. In fact, he is the most voluminous author I ever read."

The gentleman laughed. The pertness seemed to amuse him.

"Didn't I limit my question?" he said, pleasantly. "He is voluminous, and what a sensible book he has written. I wish all authors had given us so much information. But I meant, is that all he says about hotels? Doesn't he justify your friend just a little bit in her expectations?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Marion said, amused in turn at the good-natured interest which the elderly gentleman took in the question. "He has said so much that I haven't had time to digest it all. If you have, won't you please enlighten me as to his wisdom on this subject?" "'Especially one of some style or pretensions,'" quoted the old gentleman, "so Webster adds. You see I am interested in the subject," and he laughed pleasantly. "I have been looking it up, which must be my apology for addressing you young ladies, if so old a man as I must apologize for being interested in girls. The fact is, I had occasion to talk with a young man yesterday who took the people to task most roundly for that very name, on the ground that they had no right to it—that it was a misnomer. I have been struck with the thought that nothing is trivial, not even the name that happens to be chosen for a house where one waits for his dinner," with a strong emphasis on the word "wait," which Eurie understood and laughed over.

"Except the remarks that people make about such things," Marion said, answering the first part of the sentence and bestowing a wicked glance on Ruth. "They are trivial enough. Did you agree with the young gentleman?"

"No. I thought it all over and consulted Webster, as I said, and came to the conclusion that in view of this being a more pretentious house than either of the others they had a right to the word. Webster doesn't say what degree of pretension is necessary, you know."

The lifting of Ruth's eyebrows at this point was so expressive that all the party laughed. But the old gentleman grew grave again in a moment, as he said:

"But the thought that impressed me most was what a very perfect system of faith the religion of Jesus Christ is; how completely it commends itself to the human heart, since the very slightest departure from what is regarded as strictly true and right, when it is done by a Christian (society or individual), is noticed and commented upon by lookers-on; they seem to know of a certainty that it is not according to the Spirit of Christ."

This last sentence struck Marion dumb. How fond she was of caviling at Christian lives! Was she really thus giving all the time an unconscious tribute to the truth and purity of the Christian faith?

It was a merry dinner, after all, eaten with steel forks and without napkins, and with plated spoons, if you were so fortunate as to secure one. The rush of people was very great, and, with their inconvenient accommodations, the process of serving was slow.

Marion, her eyes being opened, went to studying the people about her. She found that courteous good-humor was the rule, and selfishness and ungraciousness the exception. Inconveniences were put up with and merrily laughed over by people who, from their dress and manners, could be accustomed to only the best.

Marion took mental notes.

"They do not act in the least like the mass of people who stop at railroad eating-houses for their dinner; they are patient and courteous under difficulties; they did not come here for the purpose of being entertained; if they did the accommodations wouldn't satisfy."

There was another little thing that interested Marion. As the tables kept filling, and those who had been served made room for those who had not, she found herself watching curiously what proportion of the guests observed that instant of silent thanks with covered eyes. It was so brief, so slight a thing, I venture that scarcely a person there noticed it, much less imagined that there was a pair of keen gray eyes over in the corner looking and calculating concerning them.

"What if they all had to wear badges," she said to herself, "badges that read 'I am a Christian,' I wonder how many of them it would influence to different words than they are speaking, or to different acts? I wonder if they do all wear them? I wonder if the distinction is really marked, so one looking on could detect the difference, though all of them are strangers? I mean to watch during these two weeks. 'The proper study of mankind is man.' Very well, Brother Pope, a convenient place for the study of man is Chautauqua. I'll take it up. Who knows but I may learn a new branch to teach the graded infants in Ward No. 4."

Ruth did not recover her equanimity. She was rasped on every side. Those two-tined steel forks were a positive sting to her. She shuddered as the steel touched her lips. She had no spoon at all, and she looked on in utter disgust while Eurie merrily stirred her tea with her fork. When the waiter came at last, with hearty apologies for keeping them waiting for their spoons, and the old gentleman said cordially, "All in good time. We shall not starve even if we get no spoons," she curled her lip disdainfully, and murmured that she had always been accustomed to the conveniences of life, and found it somewhat difficult to do without them.

When one is in the mood for grumbling there is no easier thing in the world than to find food for that spirit, and Ruth continued her pastime, waxing louder and more decided after the genial old man had left their neighborhood.

"What is the use in fault-finding?" Eurie said at last, half petulantly. She was growing very tired of this exhibition. "What did you expect? They are doing as well as they can, without any doubt. Just imagine what it must be to get conveniences together for this vast crowd. They did not expect anything like such a large attendance at first; I heard them say so and that makes it harder to wait upon them. But of course they are doing just as well as they can, and we fare as well as any of them."

"Don't you be so foolish as to believe that," Ruth said, with a curling lip. "If you could see behind the scenes you would soon discover something very different. That is why it is so provoking to me. Let people who cannot afford to pay any better take such as they can get. But what right had they to suppose that we had not the money to pay for what we wish? I'm sure I'm not a pauper! You will find that there is a place where the select few can get what they want, and have it served in a respectable manner, and I say I don't like it; I have been accustomed to the decencies of life."

Just behind them the talk was going on unceasingly, and one voice, at this point, rising higher than the others, caught the attention of our girls. Eurie turned suddenly and tried to catch a glimpse of the speaker. Something in the voice sounded natural. A sudden movement on the part of the gentleman between them and she caught a glimpse of the face. She turned back eagerly.

"Girls, that is Mrs. Schuyler Germain!"

"Where?" Ruth asked, with sudden interest in her voice.

"Over at that table, in a water-proof cloak and black straw hat, and eating boiled potatoes with a steel fork. What about being behind the scenes now, Ruthie?"

To fully appreciate this you must understand that even among the Erskines to get as high as Mrs. Schulyer Germain was to get as high as the aristocracy of this world reached; not that she lived in any grander style than the Erskines, or showed that she had more money, but every one knew that her bank accounts were very heavy, and, besides, she was the daughter of Gen. Wadsworth Hillyer, of Washington, and the great-granddaughter, by direct descent, of one of England's noblemen. She was traveled and cultivated, and all but titled through her youngest daughter.

Could American ambition reach higher? And there she sat, at a table made of pine boards, eating boiled potatoes with a two-tined steel fork! Could English nobility sink lower! Ruth looked over at her in quiet surprise for a moment, and then gave her head its haughty toss as she met Eurie's mischievous eyes, and said:

"It is not an aristocracy of position here, then. The leaders keep all their nice things and places for themselves. That is smaller than I supposed them to be."

At this particular moment there was an uprising from the table just behind them. Half a dozen gentlemen leaving their empty plates, and in full tide of talk, making their way down the hall. The girls looked and nudged each other as they recognized them. The younger of the two foremost had a face that can not easily be mistaken, and Eurie, having seen it once, did not need Marion's low-toned, "That is Mr. Vincent." And Ruth herself, thrown off her guard, recognized and exclaimed over Dr. Hodge.

This climax was too much for Eurie. She threw down her fork to clap her hands in softly glee.

"Oh, Ruthie, Ruthie! How has your dismal castle of favoritism faded! Yonder is the Queen of American society eating pie at this very instant with the very fork which did duty on her potato, and here goes the King of the feast, wiping his lips on his own handkerchief instead of a damask napkin."

It was at this moment, when Ruth's follies and ill humors were rising to an almost unbearable height, that her higher nature asserted itself, and shone forth in a rich, full laugh. Then, in much glee and good feeling, they followed the crowd down the hill to the auditorium.

For the benefit of such poor benighted beings as have never seen Chautauqua, let me explain that the auditorium was the great temple where the congregation assembled for united service. Such a grand temple as it was! The pillars thereof were great solemn trees, with their green leaves arching overhead in festoons of beauty. I don't know how many seats there were, nor how many could be accommodated at the auditorium. Eurie set out to walk up and down the long aisles one day and count the seats, but she found that which so arrested her attention before she was half-way down the central aisle that she forgot all about it, and there was never any time afterward for that work. I mean to tell you about that day when I get to it. The grand stand was down here in front of all these seats, spacious and convenient, the pillars thereof festooned with flags from many nations. The large piano occupied a central point; the speaker's desk at its feet, in the central of the stand; the reporters' tables and chairs just below.

"I ought to have one of those chairs," Marion said, as they passed the convenient little space railed off from the rest of the audience. "Just as if I were not a real reporter because I write in plain good English, instead of racing over the paper and making queer little tracks that only one person in five thousand can read. If I were not the most modest and retiring of mortals I would go boldly up and claim a seat."

"What is to be next?" Ruth asked. "Are we supposed to be devoted to all these meetings? I thought we were only going to one now and then. We won't be alive in two weeks from now if we pin ourselves down here."

"In the way that we have been doing," chimed in Eurie. "Just think here we have been to every single meeting they have had yet, except the one last night and one this morning."

"We are going to skip every one that we possibly can," said Marion. "But the one that is to come just now is decidedly the one that we can't. The speaker is Dr. Calkins, of Buffalo. I heard him four years ago, and it is one of the few sermons that I remember to this day. I always said if I ever had another chance I should certainly hear him again. I like his subject this afternoon, too. It is appropriate to my condition."

"What is the subject?" Flossy asked, with a sudden glow of interest.

"It is what a Christian can learn from a heathen. I'm the heathen, and I presume Dr Calkins is the Christian. So he is to see what he can learn from me, I take it, and naturally I am anxious to know. Flossy isn't interested in that; I can see it from her face. She knows she isn't a heathen—she is a good proper little Christian. But it is your duty, my dear, to find what you can learn from me."

"What can he possibly make of such a subject as that?" Ruth asked, curiously. "I don't believe I want to hear him. Is he so very talented, Marion?"

"I don't know. Haven't the least idea whether he is what you call talented or not. He says things exactly as though he knew they were so, and for the time being he makes you feel as though you were a perfect simpleton for not knowing it, too."

"And you like to be made to feel like a 'perfect simpleton?' Is that the reason you resolved to hear him again?"

"I like to meet a man once in a while who knows how to do it, and for the matter of that I wouldn't mind being made to feel the truth of the things that he says, if one could only stay made. It isn't the fault of the preaching that it all feels like a pretty story and nothing else; it is the fault of the wretched practicing that the sheep go home and do. It makes one feel like being an out-and-out goat, and done with it, instead of being such a perfect idiot of a sheep."

At this point the talk suddenly ceased, for the leaders began to assemble, and the service commenced. Ruth and Marion exchanged comic glances when they discovered the "heathen" of the afternoon to be Socrates. And Marion presently whispered that she was evidently to play the character of the old fellow's wife, and Eurie whispered to them both:

"Now I want to know if that horrid Zantippe was Socrates' wife! Upon my word I never knew it before. She wasn't to blame, after all, for being such a wretch."

"What do you mean?" Marion whispered back, with scornful eyes. "Socrates was the grandest old man that ever lived."

"Pooh! He wasn't. He didn't know any more than little mites of Sunday-school children do nowdays. I never could understand why his philosophy was so remarkable, only that he lived in a heathen country and got ahead of all the rest, but if he were living now he would be a pigmy."

"I wish he were," Marion said, with her eyes still flashing. "I would like to see such a life as he lived."

This girl was a hero worshiper. Her cheeks could burn and her eyes glow over the grand stories of old heathen characters, and she could melt to tears over their trials and wrongs. And yet she passed by in haughty silence the sublime life that of all others is the only perfect one on record, and she had no tears to shed over the shameful and pitiful story of the cross. What a strange girl she was! I wonder if it be possible that there are any others like her?



CHAPTER VIII.

"AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE BRIGHT."

Meantime Flossy Shipley came to no place where her heart could rest. She went through that first day at Chautauqua in a sort of maze, hearing and yet not hearing, and longing in her very soul for something that she did not hear—that is, she did not hear it distinctly and fairly stated, so that she could grasp it and act upon it; and yet it was shadowed all around her, and hinted at in every word that was uttered, so that it was impossible to forget that there was a great something in which the most of these people were eagerly interested, and which was sealed to her.

She felt it dimly all the while that Dr. Eggleston was speaking; she felt it sensibly when they sang; she felt it in the chance words that caught her ear on every side as the meeting closed—bright, fresh words of greeting, of gladness, of satisfaction, but every one of them containing a ring that she could hear but not copy. What did it mean? And, above all, why did she care what it meant, when she had been happy all her life before without knowing or thinking anything about it?

As they went down the hill to dinner, she loitered somewhat behind the others, thinking while they talked. As the throng pressed down around them there came one whose face she instantly recognized; it belonged to the young man who had spoken to her on the boat the evening before. The face recalled the earnest words that he had spoken, and the tone of restful satisfaction in which they were spoken. His face wore the same look now—interested, alert, but at rest. She coveted rest. It was clear that he also recognized her, and something in her wistful eyes recalled the words she had spoken.

"Have you found the Father's presence yet?" he asked, with a reverent tone to his voice when he said "the Father," and yet with such evident trust and love that the tears started to her eyes.

She answered quickly:

"No, I haven't. I cannot feel that he is my Father."

They went down the steps just then, and the crowd rushed in between them, so that neither knew what had become of the other; only that chance meeting; he might never see her again. Chautauqua was peculiarly a place where people met for a moment, then lost each other, perhaps for all the rest of the time.

"I may never see her again," Evan Roberts thought, "but I am glad that I said a word to her. I hope in my soul that she will let Him find her."

If Flossy could have heard this unspoken sentence she would have marveled. "Let Him find her!" Why, she was dimly conscious that she was seeking for Him, but no such thought had presented itself as that God was really seeking after her.

She went on, still falling behind, and trying to hide the rush of feeling that the simple question had called forth. She was very quiet at the dinner table; she was oblivious to steel forks or the want of spoons; these things that had hitherto filled her life and looked of importance to her had strangely dwindled; she was miserably disappointed; she had looked forward to Chautauqua as a place where she could have such a "nice" time. That word "nice" was a favorite with her, and surely no one could be having a more wretched time than this; and it was not the rain, either, over which she had been miserable all day yesterday, nor her cashmere dress; she didn't care in the least now whether it cleared or not; and as to her dress, she had torn her silk twice, and it was sadly drabbled, but she did not even care for that; she wanted—what? Alas for the daughter of nominally Christian parents, living among all the privileges of a cultured Christian society, she did not know what the wanted.

Dr. Calkins had one eager listener. If he could have picked out her earnest, wistful eyes among that crowd of upturned faces he would have let old Socrates go, and given himself heart and soul to the leading of this groping soul into the light. As it was he hovered around it, touching the subject here and there, thrilling her with the possibilities stretching out before her; but he was thinking of and talking all the while to those who had reached after and secured this "something" that to her was still a shadow. Now and then the speaker brought the quick tears to her eyes as he referred to those who had followed the teaching of his lips with sympathetic faces and answered the appeal to their hearts with tears; but her tears were different from those—they were the tears of a sick soul, longing for light and help.

The entire party ignored the evening meeting. Marion declared that her brain whirled now, so great had been the mental strain; Ruth was loftily indifferent to any plan that could be gotten up, and Eurie's wits were ripe for mischief; Flossy's opinion, of course, was not asked, nobody deeming it possible that she could have the slightest desire to go to meeting. In fact, Eurie put their desertion on the ground that Flossy had been exhausted by the mental effort of the day, and needed to be cheered and petted. She on her part was silent and wearily indifferent; she did not know what to do with her heavy heart, and felt that she might as soon walk down by the lake shore as do anything else; so down to the shore they went, and gave themselves up to the full enjoyment of the novel scene—an evening in the woods, great, glowing lights on every side, great companies of people passing to and fro, boats touching at the wharves and sending up group after group to the central attraction, the grand stand; singing, music by thousands of voices ringing down to them as they loitered under the trees on the rustic seats.

"I declare, it must be nice in heaven for a little while."

It was Eurie who made this somewhat startling discovery and announcement after a lull had fallen upon their mirth.

"Have you been there to see?" illogically asked Marion, as she threw a tiny stone into the water and watched the waves quiver and ripple.

Eurie laughed.

"Not quite, but this must be a little piece of it—this music, I mean. I am almost tempted to make an effort after the real thing. How exquisitely those voices sound! I'm very certain I should enjoy the music, whether I should be able to get along with the rest of the programme or not. What on earth do you suppose they do there all the time, anyway?"

"Where?"

"Why, in heaven, of course; that is what I was talking about. I believe you are half asleep, Flossy Shipley; you mustn't go to sleep out here; it isn't quite heaven yet, and you will take cold. Honestly, girls, isn't it a sort of wonderment to you how the people up there can employ their time? In spite of me I cannot help feeling that it must be rather stupid; think of never being able to lie down and take a nap!"

"Or read a novel," added Marion. "Isn't that your favorite employment when you are awake, Eurie? I'm sure I don't know much about the occupations of the place; I'm not posted; there is nothing about it laid down in our geography; and, in fact, the people who seem to be expecting to spend their lives there are unaccountably mum about it. I don't at this moment remember hearing any one ever express a downright opinion, and I have always thought it rather queer. I asked Nellie Wheden about it one day when she was going on about her expected tour in Europe. She had bored me to death, making me produce all my geographic and historic lore for her benefit; and suddenly I thought of an expedient for giving myself a little peace and a chance to talk about something else. 'Come, Nellie,' I said, 'one good turn deserves another. I have told you everything I can think of that can possibly be of interest to you about Europe; now give me some information about the other place where you are going. You must have laid up a large stock of information in all these years.'"

"What on earth did she say?" Ruth asked, curiously, while Eurie was in great glee over the story.

"She was as puzzled as if I had spoken to her in Greek. 'What in the world can you be talking about?' she said. 'I'm not going anywhere else that I know of. My head has been full of Europe for the last year, and I haven't talked nor thought about any other journey.' Well, I enlightened her as to her expectations, and what do you think she said? You wouldn't be able to guess, so I'll tell you. She said I was irreverent, and that no one who respected religion would ask such questions as that, and she actually went off in a huff over my wickedness. So, naturally, I have been chary of trying to get information on such 'reverent' subjects ever since."

Whereupon all these silly young ladies laughed long and heartily over this silly talk. Flossy laughed with the rest, partly from the force of habit and partly because this recital struck her as very foolish. Every one of them saw its inconsistent side as plainly as though they had been Christians for years; more plainly, perhaps, for it is very strange what blinded eyes we can get under certain systems of living the religious faith.

Presently the society of these young ladies palled upon themselves, and they agreed one with another that they had been very silly not to go to meeting, and that another evening they would at least discover what was being said before they lost the opportunity for getting seats.

"Stupid set!" said Eurie "who imagined that the crowd would do such a silly thing as to rush to that meeting, as if there were nothing else to do but to go flying off for a seat the moment the bell rings? I thought there would be crowds out here, and we would make some pleasant acquaintances, and perhaps get a chance to take a boat ride."

And so, in some disgust, they voted to bring the first day at Chautauqua to a sudden close and try tent life.

Silence and darkness reigned in the tent where our girls had disposed of themselves. It was two hours since they had come in. It took more than an hour, and much talking and more laughter, not to mention considerable grumbling on Ruth's part, before everything was arranged to their satisfaction—or, as Ruth expressed it, "to their endurance" for the night.

Three of the girls were sleeping quietly, their fun and their discontents alike forgotten, but Flossy tossed wearily on her bed, turned her pillow and turned it back again, and sought in vain for a quiet spot. With the silence and the darkness her unrest had come upon her again with tenfold force. She felt no nearer a solution of her trouble than she had in the morning; in fact, the pain had deepened all day, and the only definite feeling she had about it now was that she could not live so; that something must be done; that she must get back to her home and her old life, where she might hope to forged it all and be at peace again.

Into the quiet of the night came a firm, manly step, and the movement of chairs right by her side, so at least it seemed to her. All unused to tent life as she was a good deal startled she raised herself on one elbow and looked about her in a frightened way before she realized that the sounds came from the tent next to theirs. Before her thoughts were fairly composed they were startled anew; this time with the voice of prayer.

Very distinct the words were on this still night air; every sentence as clear as though it had really been spoken in the same tent. Now, there was something peculiar in the voice; clearly cut and rounded the words were, like that of a man very decided, very positive in his views, and very earnest in his life. There was also a modulation to the syllables that Flossy could not describe, but that she felt And she knew that she had heard that voice twice before, once on the boat the evening before and once as they jostled together in the crowd on their way to dinner.

She felt sorry to be unwittingly a listener to a prayer that the maker evidently thought was being heard only by his Savior. But she could not shut out the low and yet wonderfully distinct sentences, and presently she ceased to wish to, for it became certain that he was praying for her. He made it very plain. He called her "that young girl who said to-day that she could not think of thee as her Father; who seems to want to be led by the hand to thee."

Did you ever hear yourself prayed for by an earnest, reverent, pleading voice? Then perhaps you know something of Flossy's feelings as she lay there in the darkness. She had never heard any one pray for her before. So destitute was she of real friends that she doubted much whether there were one person living who had ever before earnestly asked God to make her his child.

That was what this prayer was asking. She lifted the white sleeve of her gown, and wiped away tear after tear as the pleading voice went on. Very still she was. It seemed to her that she must not lose a syllable of the prayer, for here at last was the help she had been seeking, blindly, and without knowing that she sought, all this long, heavy day. Help? Yes, plain, clear, simple help. How small a thing it seemed to do! "Show her her need of thee, blessed Jesus," thus the prayer ran. And oh! hadn't he showed her that? It flashed over her troubled brain then and there: "It is Jesus that I need. It is he who can help me. I believe he can. I believe he is the only one who can." This was her confession of faith. "Then lead her to ask the help of thee that she needs. Just to come to thee as the little child would go to her mother, and say, 'Jesus, take me; make me thy child.'" Only that? Was it such a little, little thing to do? How wonderful!

The praying ceased, and the young man who had remembered the stranger to whom God had given him a chance to speak during the day, all unconscious that other ear than God's had heard his words of prayer, laid himself down to quiet sleep. Flossy lay very still. The rain had ceased during the afternoon, and now some solemn stars were peeping in through the chinks in the tent and the earth was moon-lighted. She raised herself on one elbow and looked around on her companions. How soundly asleep they were!

Another few minutes of stillness and irresolution. Then a white-robed figure slipped softly and quietly to the floor and on her knees, and a low-whispered voice repeated again and again these words:

"Jesus, take me; make me thy child."

It wasn't very long afterward that she lay quietly down on her pillow, and earth went on exactly as if nothing at all had happened—knew nothing at all about it—even the sleeper by her side was totally ignorant of the wonderful tableau that had been acted all about her that evening. But if Eurie Mitchell could have had one little peep into heaven just then what would her entranced soul have thought of the music and the enjoyment there? For what must it be like when there is "joy in the presence of the angels in heaven"?



CHAPTER IX.

FLEEING.

The next morning every one of them ran away from the meeting. The way of it was this: as they came up from breakfast and stood at the tent-door discussing the question whether they would go to the early meeting, Mrs. Duane Smithe passed, glanced up at them carelessly, then looked back curiously, and at last turned and came back to them.

"I beg pardon," she said, "but isn't this Miss Erskine? It surely is! I thought I recognized your face, but couldn't be sure in these strange surroundings. And you have a party with you? How delightful! We were just wishing for more ladies. I really don't think it is going to rain much to-day, and we have a lovely prospect in view. You must certainly join us."

Then followed introductions and explanations, Mrs. Duane Smithe was a Saratoga acquaintance of Ruth Erskine, and was en route for Jamestown for the day.

"Where is Jamestown?" queried Eurie, who was a very useful member of society, in that she never pretended knowledge that she did not possess, so that you had only to keep still and listen to the answers that were made to her questions in order to know a good deal.

"It is at the head of this lovely little lake, or at the foot, I'm sure I don't know which way to call it, and it is nothing of consequence, of course, but the ride thither is said to be charming, and we are going to take a lunch, and picnic in a private way, just for the fun of getting together, you know, in a more social manner than one can accomplish in this wilderness of people. Isn't it a queer place, Miss Erskine? I am dying to know how you happened to come here."

Ruth arched her eyebrows.

"I confess it is almost as strange as what brought you here," she said, smiling.

"I can answer that in an instant. I have a ridiculous nephew here, who thought that a week of meetings from morning to night would be just a trifle short of paradise, so what did he do but smuggle us all off this way. I shall find it a bore, of course, and the only way to get through with it is to have little pleasure excursions like the one we propose to-day."

Now you know as much about Mrs. Duane Smithe as though I should write about her for a week. It is strange how little we have to say before we have explained to people not only our intellectual but our moral status. Our girls, you will remember, had as little regard for the meetings as girls could have, and they had by this time begun to feel themselves in a strange atmosphere, without acquaintances or gentlemanly attentions, so it took almost no persuasion at all to induce them to join Mrs. Smithe's party, composed of two young ladies and four young gentlemen. It would be difficult to explain to you what a disappointment the decision to spend the day in frolic, instead of going to the meetings, was to Flossy. All the morning her heart had been in a great flutter of happiness over the beautiful day that stretched out before her. To meet those earnest, eager people again, to hear those hymns, to hear the voice of prayer all about her, to hear the constant allusions that were so strange and so saddening to her yesterday, and that now she understood, how blessed it would be! She had gone about the bewilderments of her toilet in a tent with a serenely happy face, and almost unawares had hummed the refrain of a tune that had already shown itself a favorite at Chautauqua.

"Flossy is like herself this morning," Eurie said, as she heard the happy little song. "I think she has recovered from her home-sickness."

Tents are not convenient places in which to make private remarks. Flossy overheard this one and smiled to herself. Yes, she had gotten over her home-sickness—she had found home. She gave a little exclamation of dismay as she heard the plannings for the day, and said:

"But, Ruth, what about the meetings?"

"Well," Ruth had said, with her most provokingly nonchalant air, "I haven't made any inquiry, but I presume they will continue them all day just the same as if we were here. I don't think they will change the programme on our account."

And Eurie had added, mischievously:

"Flossy is afraid it is not the aristocratic thing to do, not to stay to all the meetings."

"Oh, as to that," Mrs. Smithe had said (she was one of those interesting people who always take remarks seriously), "I assure you it is what the first people on the ground are doing. Of course none of them would be so absurd as to think of attending meetings all the time. The brain wouldn't endure such a strain."

"Of course not," Marion had answered with gravity, "My brain is already very tired. I think yours must be exhausted."

Flossy meditated a daring resolution to stay behind and take her "rest" in the way she coveted; but the impossibility of explaining what would appear to the others as merely an ill-natured freak, and occasion no end of talk, deterred her, and with slow, reluctant steps she followed the merry group down to the wharf.

If those people had stopped long enough to think of it, this disposal of themselves would have had its ludicrous side. Certainly it was a strange fancy to run away twenty miles with lunches done up in paper in search of a picnic, when Chautauqua was one great picnic ground, stretching out before them in beauty and convenience. But the entire group belonged to that class of people for whom the fancy of the moment, whatever it may be, has infinite charms.

There was plenty of room on the Colonel Phillips. Very few people were traveling in that direction.

"It is really queer," the Captain was overheard to say, "to take a party away from the grounds at this hour of the day."

"What an enthusiastic set of people they are about here," Eurie said to Mr. Rawson, one of Mrs. Smithe's party, as they paced the deck together. "The people all talk and act as though there was nowhere to go and nothing to do but attend those meetings. For my part it is a real relief to have a change in the programme."

"Do you find it so?" he asked. "Well, now, I don't agree with you. I think this proceeding is a real bore. My respected aunt is always getting up absurd freaks, and this is one of them, and the worst one, in my opinion, that she has had for some time. I wanted to go to those meetings to-day—some of them, at least. One isn't obliged to be there every minute. But it looks badly to run away."

Eurie eyed him closely.

"Are you the 'good nephew' that your aunt said thought these meetings only a step below paradise?" she asked, at last. "I wonder you would consent to come."

Mr. Rawson flushed deeply.

"I am not the 'good nephew' at all," he said, trying to laugh. "The 'good one' wouldn't come. My aunt tried all her powers of persuasion on him in vain. But the truth is her eloquence, or her persistence, proved too much for me, though I don't like the looks of it, and I don't feel the pleasure of it, and I am afraid I shall make anything but an agreeable addition to the party. Now that is being frank, isn't it, when I am walking the deck with a young lady?"

"I don't see why that circumstance should make it a surprising thing that you are frank. But I am very sorry for you; perhaps you might prevail on the Captain to put you off now, and let you swim back; you could get there in time for the sermon. Is there to be a sermon? What is it you are so anxious to hear?"

"All of it," he said gloomily. "I beg your pardon for being in so disagreeable a mood; it is defrauding you out of some of your expected pleasure to have a dismal companion. But as I have commenced by being frank I may as well continue. I am dissatisfied with myself. I ought not to have come on this excursion. The truth is, I meant to make Chautauqua a help to me. I need the help badly enough. I am in the rush and whirl of business all the time at home. This is the only two weeks in the year that I am free, and I wanted to make it a great spiritual help to me. I know very well that merely hovering around in such an atmosphere as that at Chautauqua is a help to the Christian, and I came with the full intention of taking in all that I could get of this sort of inspiration, and it chafes me that so early in the meeting I have been led away against my inclinations by a little pressure that I might have resisted, and done no harm to any one. My cousin had the same sort of influence brought to bear on him, and it had no more effect on him than it would on a stone."

He stopped, and seemed to give Eurie a chance to answer, but she was not inclined, and he added, as if he had just thought his words an implied reproach: "I can understand how, to you young ladies of comparative leisure, with plenty of time to cultivate the spiritual side of your natures, it should seem an unnecessary and perhaps a wearisome thing to attend all these meetings; but you can not understand what it is to be in the whirl of business life, never having time to think, hardly having time to pray, and to get away from it all and go to heaven, as it were, for a fortnight, is something to be coveted by us as a great help."

Once more he waited for Eurie's answer, but it was very different from what he had seemed to expect.

"You might just as well talk to me in the Greek language; I should understand quite as well what you have been saying; I don't think I have any spiritual side to my nature; at least it has never been cultivated if I have; and Chautauqua to me is just the place in which to have a good free easy time; go where I like and stay as long as I like; and for once in my life not be bound by conventional forms. If heaven is anything like that I shouldn't object to it; but I'm sure your and my idea of it would differ. There, I've been frank now, and shocked you, I know. I see it in every line of your face. Poor fellow! I don't know what you will do, for there isn't a single one of us who has the least idea what you mean by that sort of talk, unless you have some young ladies of a different type in your party, and from their manner I rather doubt it."

She had shocked him. He looked not only pained but puzzled.

"I am very sorry," he stammered. "I mean surprised. Yes, and disappointed. Of course I am that. I think I had imagined that it was only Christians who could be attracted to Chautauqua at all; I meant to come to stay through all the services."

"Your aunt, for instance?" Eurie said, inquiringly.

"My aunt is a Christian," he answered, "and a sincere one, too, though I see for some reason you don't think so. There are degrees in Christianity, Miss Mitchell, just as there are in amiability, or culture, or beauty."

"Mr. Rawson!" called a voice from the other end at this moment, and he in obedience to the call found Eurie a seat near some of her party and went away, only stopping to say, in low tones:

"I am sorry it is all 'Greek' to you; you would enjoy understanding it, I am sure."

It so happened that those two people did not exchange another word together that day, but Eurie had got her thrust when and where she least expected it. She had taken it for granted that not a single fanatic was of their party. In the secret of her wise heart she denominated all the earnest people at Chautauqua fanatics, and all the half-hearted people hypocrites. Only she, who stood outside and felt nothing, was sincere and wise.

Meantime Marion had undertaken a strange task. Mr. Charlie Flint was the gentleman who had drawn his chair near her, and said, as he drew a long breath:

"It is exceedingly pleasant to breathe air once more that isn't heavy with psalm singing I think they are running that thing a little too steep over there. Who imagined that they were going to have meeting every minute in the day and evening, and give nobody a chance to breathe?"

"Have they exhausted you already?" Marion asked. "Let me see, this is the morning of the second day, is it not?"

"Oh, as to myself, I was exhausted before I commenced it. I am only speaking a word for the lunatics who think they enjoy it. I am one of the victims to our cousin's whim. He expects to get me converted here, I think, or something of that sort."

"I wouldn't be afraid of it," Marion said, in disgust. "I don't believe there is the least danger."

Mr. Charlie chose to consider this as a compliment, and bowed and smiled, and said:

"Thanks. Now tell me why, please."

"You don't look like that class of people who are affected in that way."

He was wonderfully interested, and begged at once to know why. Marion had it in her heart to say, "Because they all look as though they had some degree of brain as well as body," but even she had a little regard left for feelings; so she contented herself with saying, savagely:

"Oh, they, as a rule, are the sort of people who think there is something in life worth doing and planning for, and you look as though that would be too much trouble."

Now, Mr. Charlie by no means liked to be considered devoid of energy, so he said:

"Oh, you mistake. I think there are several things worth doing. But this eternal going to meeting, and whining over one's soul, is not to my taste."

"You think that it is more worth your while to take ladies out to ride and walk, and carry their parasols and muffs for them, and things of that sort. Since we are made for the purpose of staying here and showing our fine clothes for all eternity, of course it is foolish to have anything to do with one's soul, that can only last for a few years or so!"

She hardly realized herself the intense scorn there was in her voice, and as for Charlie Flint he muttered to himself:

"Upon my word, she is one of them; of the bitterest sort, too! What in creation is she doing here? Why didn't she stay there and preach?"



CHAPTER X.

HOW THE "FLITTING" ENDED.

As for Ruth Erskine, if she had been asked whether she was enjoying the day, she would hardly have known what answer to make; she could not even tell why the excursion was not in every respect all that it had promised in the morning. She had no realization of how much the atmosphere of the day before lingered around her, and made her notice the contrast between the people of yesterday and the people of to-day. Mrs. Smithe, if she were a Christian, as her nephew insisted, was one of the most unfortunate specimens of that class for Ruth Erskine to meet; because she was a woman who entered into pleasure and fashion, and entertainments of all sorts, with zest and energy and only in matters of religious interest seemed to lose all life and zeal.

Now Ruth Erskine, calm as a summer morning herself over all matters pertaining to the souls of people in general, and her own in particular, was yet exceedingly fond of seeing other people act in a manner that she chose to consider consistent with their belief; therefore she despised Mrs. Smithe for what she was pleased to term her "hypocrisy." At the same time, while at Saratoga, she had quite enjoyed her society. They rode together on fine mornings, sipped their "Congress" together before lunch, and attended hops together in the evenings. Now the reason why Mrs. Smithe's society had so suddenly palled upon her, and the words that she was pleased to call "conversation" become such vapid things, Ruth did not know, and did not for one instant attribute to Chautauqua; and yet that meeting had already stamped its impression upon her. From serene, indifferent heights she liked to look down upon and admire earnestness; therefore Chautauqua, despite all her disgust over the common surroundings and awkward accommodations, had pleased her fancy and arrested her attention more than she herself realized. It was her fate to be thrown almost constantly with Mrs. Smithe during the day, and before the afternoon closed she was surfeited. She heartily wished herself back to the grounds, and found herself wondering what they were singing, and whether the service of song was really very interesting.

One episode in her day had interested her, and she could not tell whether it had most amused or annoyed her. One of their party was conversing with a gentleman as she came up. She had just time to observe that he was young and fine-looking, when the two turned to her, and she was introduced to the stranger.

"You are from Chautauqua?" he said, speaking rapidly and earnestly. "Grand meeting, isn't it? Going to be better than last year, I think. Were you there? No? Then you don't know what a treat you are to have. I'm very sorry to lose to-day. It has been a good day, I know. The programme was rich; but a matter of business made it necessary to be away. It is unfortunate for me that I am so near home. If I were two or three hundred miles away where the business couldn't reach me, I should get more benefit. Miss Erskine, what is your opinion of the direct spiritual results of this gathering? I do not mean upon Christians. No one, of course, can doubt its happy influence upon our hearts and lives. But I mean, are you hopeful as to the reaching of many of the unconverted, or do you consider its work chiefly among us?"

Such a volley of words? They fairly poured forth! And the speaker was so intensely in earnest, and so assured in his use of that word "we," as if it were a matter that was entirely beyond question that she was one of the magic "we." She did not know how to set out to work to enlighten him. In fact, she gave little thought to that part of the matter, but, instead, fell to wondering what was her idea—whether she did expect to see results of any sort from the great gathering, and that being the case, what she expected? "Spiritual results," she said to herself, and a smile hovered over her face—what were "spiritual results?" She knew nothing about them. Were there any such things? Eurie Mitchell, had such a question occurred to her, would have asked it aloud at once and enjoyed the sense of shocking her auditor. But Ruth did not like to shock people; she was too much of a lady for that.

"What proportion of that class of people are here, do you think?" she said, at last. "Are not the most of them professing Christians?"

"Precisely the question that interests me. I should really like to know. I wonder if there is no way of coming at it? We might call for a rising vote of all who loved the Lord; could we not? Wouldn't it be a beautiful sight?—a great army standing up for him! I incline to your opinion that the most of them are Christians, or at least a large proportion. But I should very much like to know just how far this idea had touched the popular heart, so as to call out those who are not on the Lord's side."

"They would simply have come for the fun of the thing, or the novelty of it," she said, feeling amused again that almost of necessity she was speaking of herself and using the pronoun "they." What would this gentleman think if he should bring about that vote of which he spoke and happen to see her among the seated ones?

"'A wolf in sheep's clothing' he would suppose me to be," she said to herself. "But I am sure I have not told him that I belong to the 'we' at all. If he chooses to assume things in that way, it is not my fault."

Apparently he answered both her expressed sentence and her thought:

"I do not think so," he said, earnestly. "I doubt if any have come simply for fun or for novelty. There are better places in which to gratify both tastes. I believe there is more actual interest in this subject, even among the unconverted, than many seem to think. They are reasonable beings. They must think, and many of them, no doubt, think to good purpose. It may not be clear even to themselves for what they have come; But I believe in some instances, to say the least, it will prove to have been the call of the Spirit."

Again Ruth felt herself forced to smile, not at the earnestness—she liked that, but there was her party, and she rapidly reviewed them—Marion, with her calm, composed, skeptical views, indifferent alike to the Christian or unchristian way of doing things; Eurie, who lived and breathed for the purpose of having what in wild moments she called "a high time;" Flossy with her dainty wardrobe, and her dainty ways, and her indifference to everything that demanded thought or care. Which of them had been "called by the Spirit"? There was herself, and for the time she gave a little start. What had she come to Chautauqua for? After all she was the only one who seemed to be absolutely without a reason for being there. Marion's avowed intention had been to make some money; Eurie's to have a free and easy time; Flossy had come as she did everything else, because "they" did. But now, what about Ruth Erskine? She was not wont to do as others did, unless it happened to please her. What had been her motive? It was strange to feel that she really did not know. What if this strange speaking young man were right, and she had been singled out by the Spirit of God! The thought gave her a thrill, not of pleasure, but of absolute, nervous fear. What did she know of that gracious Spirit? What did she know of Christ? To her there was no beauty in him. She desired simply to be left alone. She was silent so long that her companion gave her a very searching review from under his heavy eyebrows, and then his face suddenly lighted as if he had solved a problem.

"May I venture to prophesy that you have some friend here whom you would give much to feel had been drawn here by the very Spirit of God?" He spoke the words eagerly and with earnestness, but with utmost respect, and added, "If I am right I will add the name to my list for special prayer. Do not think me rude, please. I know how pleasant it is to feel there is a union of desire in prayer. I have enjoyed that help often. We do not always need to know who those are for whom we pray. God knows them, and that is the needful thing. Good-evening. I am glad to have met you. It is pleasant to have additions to our list of fellow-heirs."

How bright his smile was as he said those words! And how thoroughly manly and yet how strikingly childlike had been his words and his trust! Ruth watched him as he walked rapidly away to overtake a friend who had just passed them. Do you remember a certain gentleman, Harold Wayne by name, who had walked with them, walked especially with Ruth, down to the depot on the morning of departure, who had toyed with her fan and complained that he could not imagine what they were going to bury themselves out there for? Ruth thought of him now, and the contrast between his lazily exquisite air and drawling words and the fresh, earnest life that glowed in this young man's veins brought a positive quiver of disgust over her handsome face. There was no shadow of a smile upon it now. Instead, she felt a nameless dread. How strange the talk had been! To what had she committed herself by her silence and his blunders? She pray for any one! What a queer thing that would be to do. She anxious that any one should be led by the spirit of God! The spirit of God frightened her. For whom would this young man pray? Not certainly for any friend of hers; yet he would put the name of some stranger in his prayers. He was thoroughly in earnest, and he was the sort of a man to do just what he said. God, he had said, would understand whom he meant. For whom would God count those prayers? For her? And that thought also frightened her.

"They are all lunatics, I verily believe, from the leaders to the followers," she said in irritation, and then she wished herself at home. During the remainder of the day she was engaged in trying to shake off the impression that the stranger had left upon her. Go where she would, say what she might, and she really exerted herself to be brilliant and entertaining, there followed her around the memory of those great, earnest eyes when he said, "I will add the name to my list for special prayer." What name? He knew hers. He would say, doubtless, "Her friend for whom she was anxious." But the one to whom he prayed would know there was no such person. What would He do with that earnest prayer? For she knew it would be earnest. She was not used to theological mazes, and if ever a girl was heartily glad when a day of pleasuring was over, and the boat had touched again at the Chautauqua wharf, it was Ruth Erskine.

As for Flossy, it so happened that Charlie Flint, after Marion had startled and disgusted him, sought refuge with her. She was pretty and dainty, and did not look strong-minded; not in the least as if her forte was to preach, so he made ready to have a running fire of small talk with her.

This had been Flossy's power in conversation for several years. He had judged her rightly there. But do you remember with whom her morning had commenced? Do you know that all the day thus far she had seemed to herself to be shadowed by a glorious presence, who walked steadily beside her, before her, on either hand, to shield, and help and bless?

It was very sweet to Flossy, and she was very happy; happier than she had ever been in her life. She smiled to herself as the others chatted, she hummed in undertone the refrain of a hymn that she had caught in a near tent that morning:

"I am so glad that Jesus loves me."

Wasn't she glad! Was there anything better to find in all this world than the assurance of this truth? She felt that the thought was large enough to fill heaven itself. After that, what hope was there for Charlie Flint and his small talk? Still, he tried it, and if ever he did hard work it was during that talk. Flossy was sweet and cheery, but preoccupied. There was a tantalizingly pleasant smile on her face, as if her thoughts might be full of beauty, but none of them seemed to appear in her words. She did not flush over his compliments, nor was she disturbed at his bantering.

He got out of all patience.

"I beg pardon," he said, in his flippantly gallant way, "but I'm inclined to think you are very selfish; you are having your enjoyment all to yourself. To judge by the face which you have worn all day your heart is bubbling over with it, and yet you think about it instead of giving me a bit."

Flossy looked up with a shy, sweet smile that was very pleasant to see, and the first blush he had been able to call forth that day glowed on her cheeks. Was it true? she questioned within herself. Was she being selfish in this, her new joy? Ought she to try to tell him about it? Would he understand? and could she speak about such things, anyway? She didn't know how. She shrank from it, and yet perhaps it would be so pleasant to him to know. No, on the whole, she did not think it would be pleasant. They had not talked of the meetings nor of religious matters at all; but for all that the subtle magnetism that there is about some people had told her that Charlie Flint would not sympathize in her new hopes and joys.

Well, if that were so, ought she not all the more to tell him, so that he might know that to one more person Christ had proved himself a reality, and not the spiritual fancy that he used to seem to her? Flossy, you see, was taking long strides that first day of her Christian experience, and was reaching farther than some Christians reach who have been practicing for years. Something told her that here was a chance of witnessing for the one who had just saved her. She thought these thoughts much more quickly than it has taken me to write them, and then she spoke:

"Have I been selfish? I do not know but I have. It is all so utterly new that I hardly know how I am acting; but it is true that my heart has been as light as a bird's all day. The truth is, I have found a friend here at Chautauqua who has just satisfied me."

"Have you indeed!" said Mr. Charlie, giving, in spite of his well-bred effort to quell it, an amused little laugh. And in his heart he said, "What a ridiculous little mouse she is! I wonder if they have the wedding day set already, and if she will announce it to me?" Then aloud: "How very fortunate you have been! I wish I could find a friend so easily as that! I wonder if I am acquainted with him? Would you mind telling me his name?"

And then Flossy answered just one word in a low voice that was tremulous with feeling, and at the same time wonderfully clear, and with a touch of joy in it that would not be suppressed, "Jesus."

Then it was that the exquisite young fop at her side was utterly dumbfounded. He could not remember ever before in his life being so completely taken by surprise and dismay that he had not a word to answer. But this time he said not a single word. He did not even attempt an answer, but paced the length of the deck beside her in utter and confused silence, then abruptly seated her, still in silence, and went hurriedly away. Flossy, occupied with the rush of feeling that this first witnessing for the new name called forth, gave little heed to his manner, and was indifferent to his departure. He was right as to one thing. Her love was still selfish: it was so new and sweet to her that it occupied all her heart, and left no room as yet for the outside world who knew not this friend of hers. They were almost at the dock now, and the glimmer of the Chautauqua lights was growing into a steady brightness. As she stood leaning over the boat's side and watching the play of the silver waves, there brushed past her one who seemed to be very quietly busy. One hand was full of little leaflets, and he was dropping one on each chair and stool as he passed. She glanced at the one nearest her and read the title: "The True Friend," and it brought an instant flush of brightness to her face to understand those words and feel that the Friend was hers. Then she glanced at the worker and recognized his face. He had prayed for her. She could not forget that face. It was plain also that his eyes fell on her. He knew her, and something in her face prompted the low-toned sentence as be paused before her: "You have found the Father, I think."

And Flossy, with brightening eyes, answered, quickly, "Yes, I have."

And then the boat touched at the wharf, and the crowd elbowed their way out.

There were two opinions expressed about that excursion by two gentlemen as they made their way up the avenue. One of the gentleman was clerical, and spectacled, and solemn.

"There go a boat-load of excursionists," he said to his companion.

"They come, as likely as not delegates, from some church or Sabbath-school, and the way they do their work is to go off for a frolic and be gone all day. I saw them when I left this morning. That is a specimen of a good deal of the dissipation that is going on here under the guise of religion. I don't know about it; sometimes I am afraid more harm than good will be done."

The other speaker was Mr. Charlie Flint, and as he rushed past these two he said to his companion, "Confound it all! Talk about getting away from these meetings! It's no use; it can't be done. A fellow might just as well stay here and run every time the bell rings. I heard more preaching to-day on this excursion than I did yesterday; and a good deal more astonishing preaching, too."



CHAPTER XI.

HEART TOUCHES.

Marion gave her hair an energetic twist as she made her toilet the next morning, and announced her determination.

"This day is to be devoted conscientiously to the legitimate business that brought me to this region. Yesterday's report will have to be copied from the Buffalo papers, or made out of my own brain. But I'm going to work to-day. I have a special interest in the programme for this morning. The subject for the lecture just suits me."

"What is it?" Eurie asked, yawning, and wishing there was another picnic in progress. Neither heart nor brain were particularly interested in Chautauqua.

"Why, it is 'The Press and the Sunday-school.' Of course the press attracts me, as I intend to belong to the staff when I get through teaching young ideas."

"But what about the Sunday-school?" Ruth questioned, with a calm voice. "You can not be expected to have any special interest in that. You never go to such an institution, do you?"

"I was born and brought up in one. But that isn't the point. The subject to-day is Sunday-school literature, I take it. The subject is strung together, 'The Press and the Sunday-school,' without any periods between them, and I'm exceedingly interested in that, for just as soon as I get time I'm going to write a Sunday-school book."

This announcement called forth bursts of laughter from all the girls.

"Why not?" Marion said, answering the laugh. "I hope you don't intimate that I can't do it. I don't know anything easier to do. You just have to gather together the most improbable set of girls and boys, and rack your brains for things that they never did do, or could do, or ought to do, and paste them all together with a little 'good talk,' and you have your book, as orthodox as possible. Do any of you know anything about Dr. Walden? He is the speaker. I presume he is as dry as a stick, and won't give me a single idea that I can weave into my book. I'm going to begin it right away. Girls, I'm going to put you all in, only I can't decide which shall be the good one. Flossy, do you suppose there is enough imagination in me to make you into a book saint? They always have a saint, you know."

There was a pretty flush on Flossy's cheek, but she answered, brightly:

"You might try, Marion, and I'll engage to practice on the character, if it is really and truly a good one."

"I had a glimpse of Dr. Walden," Eurie said, answering the question. "He was pointed out to me yesterday. He looked dignified enough to write a theological review. I'm not going to hear him. What's the use? I came for fun, and I'm going in search of it all this day. I have studied the programme, and there is just one thing that I'm going to attend, and that is Frank Beard's 'chalk talk.' I know that will be capital, and he won't bore one with a sermon poked in every two minutes."

So the party divided for the day. Marion and Ruth went to the stand, and Flossy strayed to a side tent, and what happened to her you shall presently hear. Eurie wandered at her fancy, and enjoyed a "stupid time," so she reported.

Marion's pencil moved rapidly over the paper almost as soon as Dr. Walden commenced, until presently she whispered in dismay to Ruth:

"I do wish he would say something to leave out! This letter will be fearfully long. How sharp he is, isn't he?"

Then she scribbled again. Ruth had the benefit of many side remarks.

"My!" Marion said, with an accompanying grimace. "What an army of books! All for Sunday-schools. Three millions given out every Sunday! Does that seem possible! Brother Hart, I'm afraid you are mistaken. Didn't he say that was Dr. Hart's estimate, Ruthie? There is certainly a good chance for mine, if so many are needed every week. I shall have to go right to work at it. What if I should write one, Ruth, and what if it should take, and all the millions of Sunday-schools want it at once! Just as likely as not. I am a genius. They never know it until afterward. I shall certainly put you in, Ruthie, in some form. So you are destined to immortality, remember."

"I wish you wouldn't whisper so much," whispered back Ruth. "People are looking at us in an annoyed way. What is the matter with you, Marion? I never knew you to run on in such an absurd way. That is bad enough for Eurie!"

"I'm developing," whispered Marion. "It is the 'reflex influence of Chautauqua' that you hear so much about."

Then she wrote this sentence from Dr. Walden's lips:

"Every author whose books go into the Sabbath-school is as much a teacher in that school as though he had classes there. A good book is a book that will aid the teacher in his work of bringing souls to Christ. I have known the earnest teaching of months to be defeated by one single volume of the wrong kind being placed in the hands of the scholar."

Suddenly Marion sat upright, slipped her pencil and note-book into her pocket, and wrote no more. A sentence in that address had struck home. This determination to enter the lists as a writer was not all talk. She had long ago decided to turn her talents in that direction as the easiest thing in the line of literature, whither her taste ran. She had read many of the standard Sunday-school books; read them with amused eyes and curling lips, and felt entirely conscious that she could match them in intellectual power and interest, and do nothing remarkable then. But there rang before her this sentence:

"Every author whose books go into the Sabbath-school is as much a teacher in that school as though he had classes there." A teacher in the Sabbath-school! Actually a teacher. She had never intended that. She had no desire to be a hypocrite. She had no desire to lead astray. Could she write a book that young people ought to bring from the Sabbath-school with them, and have it say nothing about Christ and heaven and the Christian life? Surely she could not be a teacher without teaching of these things. Must she teach them incidentally? Was saying nothing about them speaking against them? Dr. Walden more than intimated this.

"After all," she said, speaking to Ruth as the address closed, "I don't think I shall commence my book yet."

"Why?"

"Oh, because I am sacred." Then, impatiently, after a moment's silence, during which they changed their seats, "I'm disgusted with Chautauqua! It is going to spoil me. I feel my ambition oozing out at the ends of my toes, instead of my fingers as I had designed. Everybody is so awfully solemn, and has so much to say about eternity, it seems we can't whisper to each other without starting something that doesn't even end in eternity. But, wasn't he logical and eloquent?"

"I don't know," Ruth said, absently. And she wondered if Marion knew how true her words were. Ruth had heard scarcely a word of Dr. Walden's address since that last whisper, "So you are destined to immortality, remember." Words spoken in jest, and yet thrilling her through and through with a solemn meaning. She had always known and always believed this. She was no skeptic, yet her heart had never taken it in, with a great throb of anxiety, as it did at that moment. Was she being led of the Spirit of God?

The two merely changed their positions and looked about them a little, and then prepared to give attention to the next entertainment, which was a story from Emily Huntington Miller. Marion was the only one who was in the least familiar with her, she being the only one who had felt that absorbing interest in juvenile literature that had led her to keep pace with the times.

"I'm disposed to listen to her with all due respect and attention," she said, as she rearranged herself and got out her note-book. "She is one of the few people who seem not to have bidden a solemn farewell to their common sense when they set out to entertain the children. I have read everything she ever wrote, and liked it, too. I set out to make an idol of her in my more juvenile days. I used to think that the height of my ambition would be attained if I could have a long look at her. I'm going to try it to-day, and see if it satisfies me; though we are such aspiring and unsatisfied creatures that I strongly suspect I shall go on reaching out for something else even after this experience."

Very little whispering was done after that for some time. Although Marion made light of her youthful dreams, there was a strong feeling of excitement and interest clustering around this first sight of the woman whose name she had known so long; and something in the fair, sweet face and cultured voice fascinated and held her, much as she had fancied in her earlier days would be the case. She frowned when she heard the request to reporters to "lay aside their pencils." She had meant to earn laurels by reporting this delicious bit of imagery, set in between the graver sermons and lectures; but, after all, it was a rest to give herself up to the uninterrupted enjoyment of taking in every word and tone—taking it in for her own private benefit. "The Parish of Fair Haven." How heartily she enjoyed it. The refined and delicate, and yet keen and intense satire underlying the whole quaint original story, was of just the nature to hold and captivate her. She was just in the mood to enjoy it, too. For was it not aimed at that class of people who awakened her own keenest sense of satire—the so-called "Christian world"? She did not belong to it, you know; in her own estimation was entirely without the pale of its sarcasm; stranded on a high and majestic rock of unbelief in everything, and in a condition to be amused at the follies of people who played at belief; and treated what they played was solemn realities as if they were cradle stories or nicely woven fiction. There was no listener in all that crowd who so enjoyed the keen play of wit and the sharp home thrusts as did Marion Wilbur. Ruth was a little undecided what to think; she did not belong to the class who were hit, to be sure, but her father always gave largely to missions whenever the solicitor called on him: she had heard his name mentioned with respect as one of the most benevolent men of the day; she did not quite like the very low and matter-of-course place which Mrs. Miller's view of the mission question gave him. According to the people of Fair Haven, to give one's thousands to the cause was the most commonplace thing in the world—not to do so was to be an inhuman wretch. Ruth didn't quite like it—in truth she was just enough within the circle of modern Christianity to feel herself slightly grazed by the satire.

"It is absurd," she said to Marion as they went up the hill. "What is the sense in a woman talking in that way? As if people, were they ever so good and benevolent, could get themselves up in that ridiculous manner! If we live in the world at all we have to have a little regard for propriety. I wonder if she thinks one's entire time and money should be devoted to the heathen?"

Marion answered her with spirit.

"Oh, don't try to apologize for the folly that is going on in this world in the name of religion! It can't be done, and sensible people only make fools of themselves if they attempt it. There is nothing plainer or more impossible to deny than that church-members give and work and pray for the heathen as though they were a miserable and abominable set of brutes, who ought to be exterminated from the face of the earth, but for whom some ridiculous fanatics called 'missionaries' had projected a wild scheme to do something; and they, forsooth, must be kept from starving somehow, even though they had been unmitigated fools; so the paltry collections are doled out, with sarcastic undertones about the 'waste of money,' and the sin of missionaries wearing clothes, and expecting to have things to eat after throwing themselves away. Don't talk to me! I've been to missionary societies; I know all about it. The whole system is one that is exactly calculated to make infidels. I believe Satan got it up, because he knew in just what an abominable way the dear Christians would go at it, and what a horrid farce they would make of it all."

"It is a great pity you are not a Christian, Marion. I never come in contact with any one who understands their duty so thoroughly as you appear to, and I think you ought to be practicing."

Ruth said this calmly enough. She was not particularly disturbed; she did not belong to them, you know; but for all that she was remotely connected with those who did, and was just enough jarred to make her give this quiet home thrust. Oddly enough it struck Marion as it never had before, although the same idea had been suggested to her by other nettled mortals. It was true that she had realized how the practicing ought to be done, and a vague wish that she did believe in it all, and could work by their professed standard with all her soul, flitted over her.

Meantime Flossy was being educated. The morning work had touched her from a different standpoint. She had not heard Dr. Walden; instead she had wandered into a bit of holy ground. She began by losing her way. It is one of the easiest things to do at Chautauqua. The avenues cross and recross in an altogether bewildering manner to one not accustomed to newly laid-out cities; and just when one imagines himself at the goal for which he started, lo! there is woods, and nothing else anywhere. Another attempt patiently followed for an hour has the exasperating effect of bringing him to the very point from which he started. Such an experience had Flossy, when by reason of her loitering propensities she became detached from her party, and tried to find her own way to the stand. A whole hour of wandering, then a turn into perfect chaos. She had no more idea where she was than if she had been in the by-ways of London. Clearly she must inquire the way. She looked about her. It was queer to be lost in the woods, and yet be surrounded by tents and people. She stooped and peeped timidly into a tent, the corner of which was raised to admit air, and from which the sound of voices issued.

"Come in," said a pleasant voice, and the bright-faced hostess arose from the foot of her bed and came forward with greeting, exactly as though they had been waiting for Flossy all the morning. "Would you like to rest? Come right in, we have plenty of room and the most lovely accommodations," and a silvery laugh accompanied the words, while the little lady whisked a tin basin from a low stool, and dusting it rapidly with her handkerchief proffered her guest a seat, with as graceful an air as though the stool had been an easy-chair upholstered in velvet. The only other sitting-place, the low bed, was full, there being three ladies tucked about on it in various stages of restful work, for they had books and papers strewn about, and each held a pencil poised as if ready for action at a moment.

"I'm afraid I intrude," Flossy said, sweetly; "but the truth is, I have lost my friends and my way, and I really am an object of pity, for I have been wandering up hill and down, till my strength is less than it was."

"Poor child!" came sympathetically from the bed, spoken by the eldest of the ladies, while another rapidly improvised a fan out of the Sunday-School Times, and passed it to her.

Meantime Flossy looked about her in secret delight. Something about the air of the tent and the surroundings, and an indefinite something about every one of the ladies, told her as plainly as words could have done that she was among the workers; that she had unwittingly and gracefully slipped behind the scenes, and had been cordially admitted to one of the work-shops of Chautauqua; and there were so many things she wanted to know!



CHAPTER XII.

FLOSSY AT SCHOOL.

She hadn't the least idea who they were, but, like an earnest little diplomatist, she set to work to find out.

"I started for the auditorium," she said. "I wanted to hear Dr. Walden, but he has had time to make a long speech and get through since I first started. I think it must be nearly eleven."

"No," they said laughing, "it is only half past ten." Her wanderings had not been so long as they seemed; but it was hardly worth while to try to hear anything from him now, she would not be at all likely to get a seat; and, besides, his time was nearly over. She would better wait and go down with them in time for Mrs. Miller.

"We were obliged to miss Dr. Walden," the elder lady explained. "We disliked to very much; probably it was as instructive as anything we shall get; but we had work that had to be done, so we ran away."

"Do you have to bring work to Chautauqua with you?" Flossy asked, with insinuating sweetness. "How very busy you must be! I would have tried to run away from my work for two weeks if I had been you."

The bright little hostess laughed.

"Chautauqua makes work," she said, "and somebody has to get ready for it. This lady beside me expects an overwhelming Sabbath class here, and much time has to be given to the lesson. We lesser mortals are ostensibly going to help her, but in reality we are going to look and see how she does it."

"Have you found out?" Flossy asked in a little tremor of delight. This was what she wanted, to know how to do it all.

The lady who had been pointed out as teacher answered her quickly, so far as her words could be said to be an answer:

"Are you a Sabbath-school teacher?"

"No," Flossy said, flushing and feeling like a naughty child whose curiosity had led her into mischief. "No, I am not anything, but I want to be; I don't know how to work at all in any way, but I want to learn."

"Are you looking for work to do for the Master?" the same lady asked, with a sweet cheery voice and smile, not at all as if this were a subject which she must touch cautiously.

"Yes," Flossy said, her cheeks all in a glow. "She did not know how to work, she had but just found out that she wanted to; indeed she had but yesterday known anything of Him."

Then this unusual company of ladies came with one consent and eager eyes and voices and took her hand, and said how glad they were to welcome her to the ranks. They knew she would love the work, and the rewards were so sure and so precious. All this was new and strange and delightful to Flossy. Then they began each eagerly to tell about their work; they were all infant or primary class teachers, and all enthusiasts. Who that has to do with the teaching of little children and attains to any measure of success but is largely gifted with this same element? They had been talking over and preparing their lesson together, and they talked it over again before the bewildered Flossy, who had no idea that there was such a wonderful story in all the Bible as they were developing out of a few bare details.

"We had just reached the vital point of the entire lesson," explained the leader, "the place where every true teacher needs most help; where, having arranged all her facts and got them in martial order in her brain, she wants to know the best way of making those facts of practical present service to the little children who will be before her, and at this point I think every teacher needs to go to the fountain head for help. We were just going to pray; you would like, perhaps, to join us for just a few moments."

"If she wouldn't intrude," Flossy said, timidly, in a tremor of satisfaction; and then for the first time in her life she bowed with a company of her own sex, and heard the simple earnest voice of prayer. The words were startlingly direct and simple, and Flossy, who had been full of mysterious awe on this question, and who much doubted whether her timid whispers alone in her tent could have been called prayer, was reassured and comforted.

If this were prayer, it was simply talking in a sweet, natural voice, and in the most simple and natural language, with a dear and wise friend. It was the most quiet and yet the most confident way of asking for just what one wanted, and nothing more. It was what Flossy needed.

She took long strides in her religious education there on her knees; and as they went out from that tent and down the hill to the meeting, there was born in her heart an eager determination to enter the lists as a Sabbath-school teacher the very first opportunity, and to pray her lessor into her heart, having done what she could to get it into her head. If her anxious and well-nigh discouraged pastor could have been gifted with supernatural and prophetic vision, and could have seen that resolve, and, looking ahead, the fruit that was to be borne from it, how would his anxious soul have thanked God and taken courage!

In this mood came Flossy to listen to the story of "The Parish of Fair Haven," as it flowed down to her in Mrs. Miller's smooth-toned musical voice. One who comes from her knees to listen is sure to find the seed if it has been put in. Flossy found hers.

Often in the course of her young life she had been at church and sat in the attitude of listener while a missionary sermon was preached. She had heard, perhaps, ten sentences from those sermons, not ten consecutive sentences, but words scattered here and there through the whole; from these she had gathered that there was to be a collection taken for the cause of Missions. Just where the money was to go, and just what was to be done with it when it arrived, what had been accomplished by missionary effort, what the Christian world was hoping for in that direction—all these things Flossy Shipley knew no more about than her kitten did.

Perhaps it was not strange then, that although abundantly supplied with pin-money, she had never in her life given anything to the work of Missions. Not that she would not willingly have deposited some of her money in the box for whatever use the authorities chose to make of it had she happened to have any; but young ladies as a rule have been educated to imagine that there is one day in the week in which their portmonnaies can be off duty. There being no shopping to be done, no worsteds to match, no confectionary to tempt what earthly use for money? So it was locked up at home. This, at least, is the way in which Flossy Shipley had argued, without knowing that she argued at all.

Now she was looking at things with new eyes; the same things that she had heard of hundreds of times, but how different they were! What a remarkable scheme it was, this carrying the story of Jesus to those miserable ignorant ones, getting them ready for the heaven that had been made ready for them! The people of "Fair Haven" did not appear to her like lunatics, as they did to Ruth Erskine. She was not, you will remember, of the class who had argued this question in their ignorance, and quieted their consciences with the foolish assertion that the church collections went to pay secretaries and treasurers and erect splendid public buildings. She belonged, rather, to that less hopeless class who had never thought at all. Now, as she listened, her eyes brightened with feeling and her cheeks glowed. The whole sublime romance of Missions was being mapped out to her on the face of that quaint allegory, and her heart responded warmly.

Curiously enough, her first throbs of conscience were not for herself but for her father. The portly gentleman who occasionally sat at the head of the Shipley pew, and who certainly never parted company with his pocket-book on Sabbath or on any other day, did he give liberally to Foreign Missions?

She could not determine as to the probabilities of the case. He was counted a liberal man—people liked to come to him to start subscriptions; but Flossy felt instinctively that a subscription paper with her father's name leading it was different, someway, from a quiet, baize-lined box, and no noise nor words. She doubted whether the cause had been materially helped by him.

She lost some sentences of the story while she planned ways for interesting her father and securing liberal donations from him; and then she was suddenly startled back to personality by hearing some astounding statements from the reader.

"It would be so easy to drop into a household box the price of an apple, or a paper, or a glass of peanuts, and yet who does it? Why, there are young ladies who will actually not give two cents a week from the money that they waste!"

The rich blood mounted in waves to Flossy's forehead. Apples and papers were not in her line, but peanuts! wasn't there a certain stand which she passed almost daily on her way down town, and did she ever pass it without indulging in a glass of peanuts? Neither was that the end. Why, once started on that list, and her wastes were almost numberless. How fond she was of cream dates, and how expensive they were; and oranges, the tempting yellow globes were always shining at her from certain windows as she passed.

Oh, they were just endless, her temptations and her falls in that direction—only who had ever supposed that there was any harm in this lavish treatment of herself and of any friends whom she happened to meet? Yet it was true that she had never given any money at all to the work of sending the Bible to those who are without it.

"They will not give two cents a week," said Mrs. Miller. It was true: she had not given "two cents a week," or even two cents a year—she had simply ignored the existence of such a need for money. True, she had not been a Christian; but she was surprised to see how little this refuge served her.

"I have been a human being," she told herself, with a flush on her face, "and I ought to have had sufficient interest in humanity to have wanted those poor creatures civilized."

But there was another thrust preparing for Flossy. The reader presently touched upon one item of expenditure common to ladies, namely, kid gloves; and made the bewildering statement that economy in this matter, to the degree that needless purchases should be avoided, would treble the fund in the missionary treasury! It could not be that from among that sea of faces the speaker had singled out Flossy Shipley, and yet that is the way it seemed to her. If there was any one expense which stood out glaringly above another in her list of luxuries it was kid gloves. They must be absolutely immaculate as to quality, shade and fit, and she remorselessly consigned them to the waste-bag at the first hint of rip or change of color. How strange that Mrs. Miller should have pitched upon just that item, and what an amazing declaration to make concerning it!

It was very strange, had any one been looking on to observe it, the manner in which this young girl was being educated. It is doubtful if a whole year of church work in the regular home routine, listening to the stated, statistical sermon of her pastor, that sermon which presupposes so much more knowledge than people possess, would have begun to do for Flossy what the strange, fanciful, pungent story of "Fair Haven" did.

* * * * *

Before that hour was closed she had settled within her resolute little heart a plan that should henceforth put her in close communion and sympathy with mission work—not exactly the plans of operation, except that kid gloves and peanuts took stern places in the background, but this was simply the foundation for a resolute system of education, carried all through her future life.

What a pity it seems sometimes that people cannot read the hearts and watch the springs of action of those around them. If Mrs. Miller, as she closed her paper and moved away from the platform, could have seen the earnest purpose glowing and throbbing in Flossy's heart, and have known that it was born of words of hers, what a glad and thankful heart would she have carried back to her tent!

Also, if the much troubled pastor at home could have taken peeps into the future and seen what Flossy Shipley's resolves would do for Missions, how glad he would have been!

Perhaps it would be better to lay all the troubles and the tangles down in the Hand that overrules it all, and say, in peace and restfulness, "He knoweth the end from the beginning."



CHAPTER XIII.

"CROSS PURPOSES."

When people start out with the express design of having a good time, irrespective of other people's plans or feelings—in short, with a general forgetfulness of the existence of others—they are very likely to find at the close of the day that a failure has been made.

It did not take the entire day to convince Eurie Mitchell that Chautauqua was not the synonym for absolute, unalloyed pleasure. You will remember that she detached herself from her party in the early morning, and set out to find pleasure, or, as she phrased it, "fun." She imagined them to be interchangeable terms. She had not meant to be deserted, but had hoped to secure Ruth for her companion, she not having the excuse of wishing to report the meetings to call her to them. Failing in her, in case she should have a fit of obstinacy, and choose to attend the meetings, Eurie counted fully upon Flossy as an ally. Much to her surprise, and no little to her chagrin, Flossy proved decidedly the more determined of the two. No amount of coaxing—and Eurie even descended to the employment of that weapon—had the least effect. To be sure, Flossy presented no more powerful argument than that it did not look well to come to the meeting and then not attend it. But she carried her point and left the young searcher for fun with a clear field.

Now fun rarely comes for the searching; it is more likely to spring upon one unawares. So, though Eurie walked up and down, and stared about her, and lost herself in the labyrinths of the intersecting paths, and tore her dress in a thicket, and caught her foot in a bog, to the great detriment of shoe and temper, she still found not what she was searching for. Several times she came in sight of the stand; once or twice in sound of the speaker's voice; but having so determinately carried her point in the morning, she did not choose to abandon her position and appear among the listeners, though sorely tempted to do so. She wandered into several side tents in hope of finding something to distract her attention; but she only found that which provoked her.

In one of them a young lady and gentleman were bending eagerly over a book and talking earnestly. They were interesting looking people, and she hovered near, hoping that she had at last found the "children" who would "play" with her—a remembrance of one of her nursery stories coming to her just then, and a ludicrous sense of her resemblance to the truant boy who spent the long, bright day in the woods searching for one not too busy to play.

But these two were discussing nothing of more importance than the lesson for the coming Sabbath; and though she hovered in their vicinity for some time, she caught only stray words—names of places in the far away Judean land, that seemed to her like a name in the Arabian Nights; or an eager dissertation on the different views of eminent commentators on this or that knotty point; and so engrossed were they in their work that they bestowed on her only the slightest passing glance, and then bent over their books.

She went away in disgust. At the next tent half a dozen ladies were sitting. She halted there. Here at last were some people who, like herself, were bored with this everlasting meeting, and had escaped to have a bit of gossip. Who knew but she might creep into the circle and find pleasant acquaintances? So she drew nearer and listened a moment to catch the subject under discussion. She heard the voice of prayer; and a nearer peep showed her that every head was bowed on the seat in front, and one of the ladies, in a low voice, was asking for enlightenment on the lesson for the coming Sabbath!

"What wonderful lesson can it be that is so fearfully important?" she muttered, as she plunged recklessly into the mud and made her way in all haste up the hill without attempting any more tents. "Who ever heard such an ado made about a Sunday-school lesson? These people all act as though there was nothing of any consequence anywhere but Sunday-schools. I guess it is the first time that such a furor was ever gotten up over teaching a dozen verses to a parcel of children. I wonder if the people at home ever make such a uproar about the lesson? I know some teachers who own up, on the way to church, that they don't know where the lesson is. This must be a peculiar one. I wonder how I shall contrive to discover where it is? The girls won't know, of course. With all their boasted going to meeting they know no more about lessons than I do myself. I would really like to find out. I mean to ask the next person I meet. It will be in accordance with the fashion of the place. Think of my walking down Broadway of a sunny morning and stopping a stranger with the query, 'Will you tell me where the lesson is, please?'" And at this point Eurie burst into a laugh over the absurdity of the picture she had conjured.