"But this is not Broadway," she said a moment afterward, "and I mean to try it. Here comes a man who looks as if he ought to know everything. I wonder who he is? I've seen his face a dozen times since I have been here. He led the singing yesterday. Perhaps he knows nothing but sing. They are not apt to; but his face looks as though he might have a few other ideas. Anyway, I'll try him, and if he knows nothing about it, he will go away with a confused impression that I am a very virtuous young lady, and that he ought to have known all about it; and who knows what good seed may be sown by my own wicked hand?"

Whereupon she halted before the gentleman who was going with rapid strides down the hill, and said, in her clearest and most respectful tone:

"Will you be so kind as to tell me where the lesson for next Sabbath commences? I have forgotten just where it is."

There was no hesitation, no query in his face as to what she was talking about, or uncertainty as to the answer.

"It is the fifth chapter, from the fifth to the fifteenth verse," he said, glibly. "All fives, you see. Easy to remember. It is a grand lesson. Hard to teach, though, because it is all there. Are you a teacher for next Sunday? You must come to the teachers' meeting to-morrow morning; you will get good help there. Glorious meeting, isn't it? I'm so glad you are enjoying it." And away he went.

Every trace of ill-humor had vanished from Eurie's face. Instead, it was twinkling with laughter.

"The fifth chapter and fifteenth verse" of what? Certainly she had no more idea than the birds had who twittered above her head. How entirely certain he had been that of course she knew the general locality of the lesson. She a teacher and coming to the teachers' meeting for enlightenment as to how to teach the lesson!

"I wonder who he is?" she said again, as these thoughts flashed through her brain, and, following out the next impulse that came to her, she stopped an old gentleman who was walking leisurely down, and said, as she pointed out her late informant:

"What is that man's name, please? I can't recall it."

"That," said the old gentleman, "is Prof. Sherwin, of Newark. Have you heard him sing?"

"Yes."

"Well, that is worth hearing; and have you heard him talk?"

"No."

"Well, he can talk; you will hear him, and enjoy it, too; see if you don't. But I'll tell you what it is, young lady, to know him thoroughly you ought to hear him pray! There is the real power in a man. Let me know how a man can pray and I'll risk his talking."

Eurie had got much more information now than she had asked for. She ventured on no more questions, but made all haste to her tent, where, seated upon a corner of the bed, one foot tucked under her while the unfortunate shoe tried to dry, she sewed industriously on the zig-zag tear in her dress, and tried to imagine what she could do next. Certainly they had long days at Chautauqua. "I shall go to meeting this afternoon," she said, resolutely, "if they have three sermons, each an hour long; and what is more, I shall find out where that Sunday-school lesson is."

The next thing she did was to write a letter to her brother Nellis, a dashing boy two years her senior and her favorite companion in her search for pleasure. Here is a copy of the letter:



"DEAR NEL: I wish you were here. Chautauqua isn't so funny as it might be. There are some things that are done here continually. In the first place, it rains. Why, you never saw anything like it! It just can't help it. The sun puts on a bland face and looks glowing intentions, and while you are congratulating your next neighbor on the prospect, she is engaged in clutching frantically after her umbrella to save her hat from the first drops of the new shower. Next, they have meetings, and there is literally no postponement on account of the weather. It is really funny to see the way in which the people rush when the bell rings, rain or shine. Nel, only think of Flossy Shipley going in the rain to hear a man preach of the 'Influence of the Press,' or something of that sort! It was good though, worth hearing. I went myself, because, of course, one must do something, and the frantic fashion of the place is to go to meeting. At the same time I don't understand Flossy: she is different from what she ever was at home. I suppose it is the force of the many shining examples all around her. You know she always was a good little sheep about following somebody's lead.

"Marion is reporting, and has to be industrious. She is queer, Nel; she professes infidelity, you know; and you have no idea how mad she gets over anything that seems to be casting reproach on Christianity (unless indeed she says it herself, which is often enough, but then she seems to think it is all right).

"Ruth keeps on the even tenor of her way. It would take an earthquake to move that girl.

"I have had the greatest fun this morning. I have been mistaken for a Sabbath-school teacher who had the misfortune to forget at what verse her lesson commenced! You see I was cultivating new acquaintances, and a Prof. Sherwin gave me good advice. That and some other things aroused my curiosity concerning that same lesson, and I am going to find out where it is.

"Did you know that Sunday-school lessons were such remarkable affairs? The one for next Sunday must comprise the most wonderful portion of Scripture that there is, for hundreds of people on these grounds are talking about it, and I stumbled upon a party of ladies this morning who were actually praying over it!

"Another thing I overheard this morning, which is news to me, that all the world was at work on the same lesson. That is rather fascinating, isn't it, to think of so many hundreds and thousands of people all pitching into the same verses on Sunday morning? It is quite sentimental, too, or capable of being made so, for instance, by a great stretch of your imagination. Suppose you and me to be very dear friends, separated by miles of ocean we will say, and both devoted Sabbath-school teachers, isn't that a stretch now? Such being the astonishing case, wouldn't it be pleasant to be at work on the same lesson? Don't you see? Lets play do it. You look up the lesson for next Sabbath and so will I. Won't that have all the charm of novelty? Then give me the benefit of your ideas acquired on that important subject, and I'll do the same to you. Really, the more I think of it the more the plan delights me. I wonder how you will carry it out? Shall you go to Sunday-school? What will the dear Doctor say if he sees you walk into his Bible-class? I really wish I were there to enjoy the sensation. Meantime I'm going to look up an altogether wonderful teacher for myself, and then for comparing notes. My spirits begin to rise, they have been rather damp all the morning, but I see fun in the distance.

"We are to have a sensation this afternoon in the shape of a troupe of singers called the Tennesseeans—negroes, you know, and they are to give slave-cabin songs and the like. I expect to enjoy it thoroughly, but you ought to see Ruth curl her aristocratic nose at the thought.

"'Such a vulgar idea! and altogether inappropriate to the occasion. She likes to see things in keeping. If it is a religious gathering let them keep it such, and not introduce negro minstrels for the sake of calling a low crowd together, and making a little more money.'

"Marion, too, shoots arrows from her sharp tongue at it, but she rather enjoys the idea, just as she does every other thing that she chooses to call inconsistent when she happens to be the one to discover it; but woe to the one who comments on it further than she chooses to go.

"Flossy and I now look with utmost toleration on the dark element that is to be introduced. I tell Ruth that I am really grateful to the authorities for introducing something that a person of my limited capacities can appreciate, and Flossy, with her sweet little charitable voice, has 'no doubt they will choose proper things to sing.' That little mouse is really more agreeable than she ever was in her life; and I am amazed at it, too. I expected the dear baby would make us all uncomfortable with her finified whims; but don't you think it is our lofty Ruth who is decidedly the most disagreeable of our party, save and except myself!"



This interesting epistle was brought to a sudden close by an interruption. A gentleman came with rapid steps, and halted before her tent door, which was tied hospitably back.

"I beg pardon," he said, speaking rapidly, "but this is Miss Rider?"

"It is not," Eurie answered, with promptness at which information he looked surprised and bewildered.

"Isn't this her tent? I am sorry to trouble you, but I have been sent in haste for her. She is wanted for a consultation, and I was told I would find her here. Perhaps I might leave a message with you for her?"

"It certainly isn't her tent," Eurie said, trying to keep down the desire to laugh, "and I haven't the least idea where she is. I should be glad to give her your message if I could, but I never saw the lady in my life, and have no reason to expect that pleasure."

Whereupon her questioner laughed outright.

"That is a dilemma," he said. "I appreciate your feelings, for I am precisely in the same position; but the lady was described minutely to me, and I certainly thought I had found her. I am sorry to have interrupted you," and he bowed himself away.

A new curiosity seized upon Eurie—the desire to see Miss Rider. "She must be one of them," she soliloquized, falling into Flossy's way of speaking of the workers at Chautauqua. "He said she was wanted for a consultation. I wonder if she can be one of those who are to take part in the primary exercises? She must be young for such prominent work if she looks like me; but how could he know that since he never saw her? It is very evident that I am to go to Sunday-school next Sabbath anyhow, if I never did before, for now I have two items of interest to look up—a lesson that is in the 'fifth chapter, from the fifth to the fifteenth verse of something,' and a being called 'Miss Rider.'" So thinking she hastily concluded and folded her letter, ready for the afternoon mail, without a thought or care as to the seed that she had been sending away in it, or as to the fruit it might bear; without the slightest insight into the way she was being led through seeming mistakes and accidents up to a point that was to influence all her future.



CHAPTER XIV.

THE NEW LESSON.

Eurie turned her pillow, thumped the scant feathers into little heaps, and gave a dismal groan as she laid her head back on it.

"It is very queer," she said, "that as soon as ever I make up my mind to be orthodox, and go to meeting every time the bell rings, I should be dumped into a heap on this hard bed with the headache. I haven't had a touch of it before."

"'The way of transgressors is hard,'" quoted Marion, going on calmly with her writing. "If you hadn't taken that horrid tramp yesterday instead of going to meeting like a Christian, you would have been all right to-day."

"I believe you sit up nights to read your Bible, so as to have verses to fling at people who are overtaken in any possible trial or inconvenience. You always have them ready. Didn't you bring it with you, and don't you prepare a list for each day's use?" This was Eurie's half merry, half petulant reply to the Bible verse that had been "flung" at her.

Marion carefully erased a word that seemed to her fastidious taste too inexpressive before she answered:

"I don't own such an article as a Bible, my child; so your suspicions are entirely unfounded. My early education was not defective in that respect, however, and I confess that I find many verses that seem to very aptly describe the ways of sinful mortals like yourself."

Eurie raised herself on one elbow, regardless of headache and the cloth wet in vinegar that straightway fell off.

"You don't own a Bible!" she said, in utter surprise, and with a touch of actual dismay in her voice.

"I am depraved to that degree, my dear little saint. I conclude that you are more devoutly inclined, and have one of your own. Pray how many chapters a day do you read in it?"

Eurie lay down again, and Flossy came with the vinegar cloth and bound it securely on her forehead.

"I don't read in it very often, to be sure," Eurie murmured. "In fact I suppose I may as well say that I never do. But then I own one, and always have. I am not a heathen; and really and truly it seems almost queer not to have a Bible of one's own. It is a sort of mark of civilization, you know."

Marion laughed good-naturedly.

"I never make a great deal of pretense in that line," she said, gayly. "As for being a heathen, that is only a relative term. According to Dr. Calkins, they were more or less in advance of us. I am one of the 'advanced' sort. Ruth, your toilet ought to be nearly completed; I hear that indefatigable bell."

"You are very foolish not to go this morning and let your writing wait. We shall be certain to have something worth listening to; it is a strange time to select for absence." This was Ruth's quiet answer, as she pinned her lace ruffle with a gleaming little diamond.

"'Diligent in business.' There is another verse for you, my heathen," Marion said, with a merry glance toward Eurie. "When you get home and get the dust of years swept off from your Bible, you take a look at it, and see if I have not quoted correctly. And a good, sensible verse it is. I have found it the only way in which to keep my head above water. Ruthie, the trouble is not with me, it lies with those selfish and obstinate newspaper men. If they would have the sense to let their papers wait over another day I could go to the lecture this morning. As it is, I am a victim to their indifference. If I miss a blessing the sin will be at their door, not mine."

Eurie opened her heavy eyes and looked at Flossy.

"Come," she said, "don't stand there mopping me in vinegar any longer. Are you ready? I am really disappointed. I've always wanted to hear that man. I want to tell Nel about him."

Flossy washed her hands, shook back the yellow curls with an indifferent and preoccupied air, and went to the door to wait for Ruth. She had taken no part in the war of words that had been passing between Marion and Eurie, but she had heard. And like almost everything else that she heard during these days, it had awakened a new thought and desire. Flossy was growing amazed at herself. It seemed to her that she must have spent her seventeen years of life taking long naps, and this Chautauqua was a stiff breeze from the ocean that was going to shake her awake. The special thought that had dashed itself at her this morning was that she, too, had no Bible. Not that she did not own one, elegantly done in velvet and clasped in gold, so effectually clasped that it had been sealed to her all her life. She positively had no recollection of having ever sat down deliberately to read the Bible. She had "looked over" occasionally in school, but even this service of her eyes had been fitful and indifferent; and as for her head paying any sort of attention to the reading, it might as well have been done in Greek instead of French, which language she but dimly comprehended even when she tried. But now she ought to have a Bible. She ought not to wait for that velvet covered one. A whole week in which to find what some of her orders were, and no way in which to find them. Of course she could buy one, but how queer it would seem to be going to the museum to make a purchase of a Bible! "They will wonder why I did not bring my own," she murmured, with that life-long deference that she had educated herself to pay to the "they" who composed her world. And in another instance the new-born feeling of respect and independence asserted itself. "I can't help that," she said, positively, shaking her curls with a determined air; "and it really makes no difference what anybody thinks. Of course I must have a Bible, and I only wish I had it for this morning, I shall certainly get one the first opportunity." Then she turned and said "good-morning" to the pretty little lady who occupied the tent next door, and between whom and herself a pleasant acquaintance was springing up.

"Are you going to the lecture?" Flossy, asked and the small lady shook her head, with a wistful air.

"Dear me, no! My young tyrant wouldn't consent to that. I meant to take him down with me and try him, but he has gone to sleep; and it is just as well, for he would have been certain to want to do all the talking. He has no idea that there is any one in the country who knows quite as much as he does." It was said in a half complaining tone, but underneath it was the foundation of tender pride, that showed her to be the vain mother of the handsome tyrant. Still it seemed to be Flossy's duty to condole with her.

"You miss most of the meetings, do you not?"

"Three-fourths of them. You see it is inconvenient to have a husband who is reporter for the press, and who must be there to hear. It is only when he must write up his notes for publication that I can get a chance; and even then, unless it is baby's sleepy time, it does me no good. I am especially sorry this morning, for Dr. Cuyler used to be my pastor. He married me one summer morning just like this, and I haven't laid eyes on him since. I should like to hear his voice again, but it can't be done."

Now who would have imagined that, with all the powers that were bestirring themselves to come to Flossy's education, it would have been a rosy, crowing baby, in the unconsciousness of a morning nap, that should have given her her first lesson in unselfishness? Yet he was the very one. It flashed over Flossy in an instant from some source. Who was so likely to have suggested it as the sweet angel who hovered over the sleeping darling?

"Oh, Mrs. Adams, let me stay with baby, and you go to hear Cuyler. It is a real pity that you should miss him, when he is associated with your life in this way. I never saw him, and though, of course, I should like to, yet I presume there will be opportunities enough. I will be as careful of baby as if he were my grandson; and if he wakens I will charm him out of his wits, so that it will never occur to him to cry."

Of course there was demurring, and profuse expressions of thanks and declinatures all in a breath. But Flossy was so winning, so eager, so thoroughly in earnest; and the little Mrs. Adams did so love her old pastor, and did feel so anxious to see him again, that in a very short time she was beguiled into going in all haste to her tent to make a "go-to-meeting" toilet; and a blessed thing it was that that sentence does not mean at Chautauqua what it does in Buffalo, or Albany, or a few other places, else Dr. Cuyler might have slipped from them before the necessary articles were all in array. It involved simply the twitching off of a white apron, the settling of a pretty sun hat—for the sun actually shone!—and the seizure of a waterproof, needed, if she found a seat, to protect her from the damp boards—needed in any case, because in five minutes it might rain—and she was ready.

Ruth came to the door.

"Come, Flossy," she said; "where in the world are you? We shall be late." And said it precisely as though she had been waiting for that young person for half an hour.

Flossy emerged from the adjoining tent.

"I am not going." she said. "I have turned nurse-girl, and have the sweetest little baby in here that ever grew. Mrs. Adams is going in my place. Mrs. Adams, Miss Erskine."

And as those two ladies walked away together Mrs. Adams might have been heard to say:

"What a lovely, unselfish disposition your friend has! It was so beautiful in her to take me so by storm this morning! I am afraid I was very selfish; which is apt to be the case, I think, when one comes in contact with actual unselfishness. It is one of the Christian graces that is very hard to cultivate, anyway; don't you think so?"

Ruth was silent; not from discourtesy, but from astonishment. It was such a strange experience to hear any one speak of Flossy Shipley as "unselfish." In truth she had grown up under influences that had combined to foster the most complete and tyrannical selfishness—exercised in a pretty, winning sort of way, but rooted and grounded in her very life. So indeed was Ruth's; but she, of course, did not know that, though she had clear vision for the mote in Flossy's eyes.

Meantime Marion had staid her busy pen and was biting the end of it thoughtfully. The two tents were such near neighbors that the latter conversation and introduction had been distinctly heard. She glanced around to the girl on the bed.

"Eurie," she said, "are you asleep, or are you enjoying Flossy's last new departure?"

Eurie giggled.

"I heard," she said. "The lazy little mouse has slipped out of a tedious hour, and has a chance to lounge and read a pleasant novel. I dare say the mother is provided with them."

Then Marion, after another thoughtful pause:

"But, my child, how do you account for the necessity of going to the neighbors and taking the supervision of a baby in order to do that? Flossy need not have gone to church if she didn't choose."

"Yes she need. Don't you suppose the child can see that it is the fashion of the place? She is afraid that it wouldn't look well to stay in the tent and lounge, without an excuse for doing so. If that girl could only go to a place where it was the fashion for all the people to be good, she would be a saint, just because 'they' were."

"She would have to go to heaven," muttered Marion, going on with her writing.

"And, according to you, there is no such place; so there is no hope for her, after all. Oh, dear! I wonder if you are right, and nothing is of any consequence, anyhow?" And the weary girl turned on her pillow and tried not to think, an effort that was hard to accomplish after a week's experience at Chautauqua.

Flossy sat herself down beside the sleeping darling, and cast about her for something to amuse or interest, her eyes brightening into beauty as she recognized a worn and torn copy of the Bible. Eurie would have been surprised to see the eagerness with which she seized upon the book that was to afford her entertainment. She turned the leaves tenderly, with a new sense of possession about her. This Bible was a copy of letters that had been written to her—words spoken, many of them, by Jesus himself. Strange that she had so little idea what they were! Marion, with her boasted infidel notions, knew much more about "The Book" than Flossy with her nominal Christian education and belief. She had no idea where to turn or what to look for to help her. Yet she turned the leaves slowly, with a delicious sense of having found a prize a—book of instructions, a guide book for her on this journey that she was just beginning to realize that she was taking. Somewhere within it she would find light and help. The book was one that had been much used, and had a fashion of opening of itself at certain places that might have been favorites with the little mother. At one of those places Flossy halted and read: "'After this there was a feast of the Jews.' After what, I wonder?" she said within herself. She knew nothing about it. "Never mind, I will see pretty soon. This is about a feast where Jesus was. And Jesus went up to Jerusalem." "Oh, how nice to have been there, wherever that was." The ignorant little thing had not the least idea where Jerusalem was, except that it was in that far away, misty Holy Land, that had seemed as vague and indefinite to her as the grave or as heaven. But there came suddenly to her heart a certain blessed analogy.

"If I were going to write an account of my recent experiences to some dear friend that I wanted to tell it to," she said, talking still to herself, or to the sleeping baby, "I would write it something like this: 'After this'—That would mean; let me see what it would mean. Why, after that party at home, when I danced all night and was sick. 'After this there was a feast of the Christian people at Chautauqua, and Jesus went there.' I could certainly write that, for I have seen him and heard him speak in my very heart." Then she went on, through the second verse to the third. "'In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water,'" and here a great swell of tears literally blinded her eyes. It came to her so suddenly, so forcibly. The great multitude here at Chautauqua—blind. Yes, some of them. Was not she? How many more might there be? Many of whom she knew, others that she did not know, but that Jesus did. Waiting without knowing that they were waiting. With tears and smiles, and with a new great happiness throbbing at her heart, she read through the sweet, simple, wonderful story; how the poor man met Jesus; how he questioned; how the man complained; and how Jesus was greater than his infirmity. Through the whole of it, until suddenly she closed the book, her tears dried, and a solemn, wondering, almost awe-struck look on her face. She had got her lesson, her directions, her example. She could bear no more, even of the Bible, just then. She said it over, that startling verse that came to her with a whole volume of suggestion: "'And the man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus which had made him whole.'"



CHAPTER XV.

GREAT MEN.

Ruth Erskine, with her skirts gathered daintily around her, to avoid contact with the unclean earth, made her way skill fully through the crowd, and with the aid of a determined spirit and a camp-chair secured a place and a seat very near the stand. The little lady who timidly followed in her lead was not quite so fortunate, inasmuch as she had no camp-chair, and was less resolved in her determination to get ahead of those who had arrived earlier; so she contented herself with a damp seat on the end of a board, which was vacated for her use by a courteous gentleman.

Ruth, you must understand, was not selfish in this matter because she had planned to be, but simply because it had never occurred to her to be otherwise, which is one of the misfortunes that come to people who are educated in a selfish atmosphere. Ruth Erskine had come to this meeting fully prepared to enjoy it. Dr. Cuyler was a star of sufficient magnitude to attract her. During her frequent visits to New York she had heard much of but had never seen him. The people whom she visited were too elegant in their views and practices to have much in common with the church which was so pronounced on the two great questions of religion and temperance. Yet, even with them, Dr. Cuyler and Dr. Cuyler's great church were eccentricities to be tolerated, not ignored. Therefore Ruth had had it in her heart to enjoy listening to him sometime. The sometime had arrived. She had dressed herself with unusual care, a ceremony which seemed to be quite in the background among the people who were at home at Chautauqua. But someway it seemed to Ruth that the great Brooklyn pastor should receive this mark of respect at her hands; so she had spent the morning at her toilet and was now a fashionable lady, fashionably attired for church.

If the people who vouchsafed her a glance as she crowded past indulged, some of them, in a smile at her expense, and thought the simple temple made of trees and grasses an inappropriate surrounding to her silken robes and costly lace mantle, she was none the wiser for that, you know, and took her seat, indifferent to them all, except that presently there stole over her the sense of disagreeable incongruity with her outdoor surroundings; so Satan had the pleasure of ruffling her spirits and occupying her thoughts with her rich brown silk dress instead of letting her heart be touched with the solemnity and beauty of the grand hymn which rolled down those long aisles. Satan has that everlasting weapon, "What to wear, and what not to wear," everlastingly at command and wonderfully under his control. But Ruth, in her way, was strong-minded and could control her thoughts when she chose; so she presently shook off the feeling of annoyance and decided to give herself up to the influences of the hour.

By this time Dr. Cuyler appeared and was introduced, Ruth gave him the benefit of a very searching gaze, and decided that he was the very last man of all those on the platform whom she would have selected as the speaker. Probably if Dr. Cuyler had known this, and known also that his personal presence entirely disappointed her, he would not have been greatly disconcerted thereby. But his subject was one that found an answering thrill in this young lady's heart—"Some Talks I Have Had With Great Men." Ruth liked greatness. In her calm, composed way she bowed before it. She would have enjoyed being great. Celebrity in a majestic, dignified form would have been her delight. She by no means admitted this, as Eurie Mitchell so often did. She by no means sought after it in the small ways within her reach. Small ways did not suit her; they disgusted her. But if she could have flashed into splendid greatness, if by any amount of laborious study, or work, or suffering, she could have seen the way to world-wide renown she would have grasped for it in an instant.

The next best thing to being renowned one's self was to have renowned people for friends. This was another thing that Ruth coveted in silence. She wanted no one to know how earnestly she aspired to, sometime, making the acquaintance of some of the great people not—the vulgarly great, those who were in a sense, and in the eyes of a few, great because of the accidents of fortune and travel. She knew such by the scores. Indeed, she had been in circles many a time where she shone with that sort of greatness herself. Perhaps it was for that reason that it was such a despised height to her. But she meant the really great people of this world—people of power, people who moved the masses by the force of their brains. Not one such had she ever met to look upon as an acquaintance; and here was this man telling off the honored names by the score, and saying, "My friend, Dr. Guthrie"—"My good friend, Thomas Carlyle"—"My dear brother, Newman Hall." How would it seem to stand in intimate relationship with one single gifted mind like these, and was she destined ever to know by actual experience?

There was another reason why Ruth had desired to choose Dr. Cuyler to listen to rather than some other names on the programme, because, from the nature of his subject she had judged it most unlikely that he should have about him any arrows that would touch home to her. Not that she put it in that language; she did not admit even to herself that any of the solemn words that had been spoken at Chautauqua had reference to her; and yet in a vague, fitful way she was ill at ease.

She had moments of feeling that there was a reach of happiness possessed by these people of which she knew nothing. Little side thrusts had come to her from time to time in places where she least expected them. That question, asked by Flossy during her night of unrest, "Should you be afraid to die?" hovered around this quietly poised young lady in a most unaccountable manner. All the more persistently did it cling because she could not shake it off with the thought that it was silly. Common sense told her that the strange, solemn shadow, which came so steadily after men, and so surely enveloped one after another among the grandest intellects that the world owned, was not a thing to pass over lightly.

After all, why should she not be afraid of death? Then that strange gentleman who had persisted in ranking her among the praying people! he had left his shadow. Why did she not pray? She wondered over this in a vague sort of way; wondered how it seemed to kneel down alone, and speak to an invisible presence; wondered if those who so knelt always felt as though they were really speaking to God.

There were times when Ruth was exceedingly disgusted with these perplexing thoughts, and wanted nothing so much as to get away from them. She resented this intrusion upon her quiet. This day was one of those in which she was impatient of all these things, and she had made her toilet with great satisfaction, and said within herself complacently: "We are to have one hour at last devoted to this mundane sphere and the mortals who inhabit it; most of the time these Chautauquans talk and act as though earth was only a railroad station, where people changed cars and went on to heaven. Dr. Cuyler is going to refresh us with some actual living specimens of humanity. He can't make a sermon out of that subject if he tries."

But Ruth Erskine had not measured the power of the earnest preachers of Jesus Christ. As if Dr. Cuyler could talk for an hour to thousands of immortal souls, and leave Christ and heaven and immortality out.

To Ruth these three words constituted a sermon, and she got them that day. Not that he had an idea that he was preaching Christ, except incidentally, as a man refers almost unconsciously to the one whom he loves best in all the world but Ruth knew he was. It came in little sudden touches when she least expected it, when heart and soul were wrought upon with some strong enthusiasm by the splendid picture of a splendid man—as when he told of Spurgeon. It was a glowing description, such as thrilled Ruth, and made her feel that to have just one glimpse of that great man, with his great marvelous power over humanity, would be worth a lifetime.

Suddenly the speaker said: "The secret of that man's power lies, first, in his study of the Bible." Ruth started and came down like a bomb-shell from her wondrous height. The Bible! copies of which lay carelessly on every table of her father's elegantly furnished house unstudied and unthought of. How very strange to ascribe the power of the great intellect to the study of one book that was more or less familiar to every Sunday-school boy. "Second, in short, simple, homely language." Ruth smiled now. Dr. Cuyler was growing absurd, as if it were not the most common thing in the world to use simple, homely language! No Spurgeons could be manufactured in that way, she was sure. "Third, mighty earnestness to save souls." Here was a point concerning which Ruth knew nothing.

Dr. Cuyler's manner put tremendous force into the forceful words, and carried conviction with them. She wondered how a really mighty earnestness to save souls made a man appear? She wondered whether she had ever seen such a one; she went rapidly over the list of her acquaintances in the church. She smiled to herself a sarcastic, contemptuous smile; she had met them all at parties, concerts, festivals, and the like; she had seen them on occasions when nothing seemed to possess them but to have a good time like the rest of the world.

Like the rest of the world, Ruth reasoned and decided from her chance meetings with the outside life of these Christians, forgetting that she had never seen one of them in their closets before God; rather, she knew nothing about these closets, nor the experiences learned there, and could only reason from outside life. This being the case, what a pity that her verdict of those lives should have called forth only that contemptuous smile! Wandering off in this train of thought, she lost the speaker's next point, but was called back by his solemn, ringing close.

"Put these together, melt them down with the love of Christ, and you have a Spurgeon. God be thanked for such a piece of hand work as he!"

Another start and another retrospect. Did she know any people who put these together; who made a real, earnest, constant study of the Bible as school girls studied their Latin grammars, and who were really eager to save souls because they had the love of Christ in their hearts, and who said so in plain simple language? "Does he, I wonder?" she said to herself. "I wonder if his sermons sound like that? I should like to hear him preach just once. Oh, dear! if he isn't running off to Moody and Sankey. It is a sermon after all!"

On the whole, Ruth was disgusted. Her brain was in a whirl; she was being compelled to hear sermons on every hand. She was sick of it. They had been great men of whom she had heard, and she admired them all; she wanted the secret of their power, but she didn't want it to be made out of such commonplace material as was in the hands of every child. She did not know what she wanted—only that she had come out to be entertained and to revel in her love of heroes, and she had been pinned down to the one thought that real men were made of those who found their power in their Bible and on their knees.

The solemn, earnest, tender closing to this address did not lessen her sense of discomfort. Then just beside her was carried on a conversation that added to her annoyance.

"They are big men," a man said. He was dressed in a common business suit; his linen had not the exquisite freshness about it that her fastidious eyes delighted in; his hands looked as though they might have been used to work that was rough and hard; his straggling hair was sprinkled with gray, and there was not a striking feature about him.

"They are big men," he said, "and I've no doubt it is a big thing to know them, and talk with them, and have a friendly feeling for each, as if they belonged to him, but he knows a bigger one than them, and the best of it is, so do we. The Lord Jesus Christ, our Elder Brother, is not to be compared to common men like these."

And now Ruth's lips curled utterly. She was an aristocrat without knowing it. She believed in Christianity, and in its power to save the poor and the commonest, but this insufferable assumption of dignity and superiority over the rest of the world, as she called it, was hateful to her in the extreme. It would have startled her exceedingly to have been told that she was angry with the man for presuming to place his Friend higher in the list of great ones than any of those given that day; and yet such was actually her feeling. She swept her skirts angrily away from contact with the man, and spoke so crustily to the little lady who had come in her wake that she moved timidly away.

Just at her left were two gentlemen shaking hands. Both had been on the stand together, she knew the faces of both, and one ranked just a trifle higher in her estimation than any one at Chautauqua. She edged a little nearer. She lived in the hope of making the acquaintance of some of these lights, just enough acquaintance to receive a bow and a clasp of the hand, though how one could accomplish it who was determined that her interest in them should neither be seen nor suspected, it would be hard to say; but they were talking in eager, hearty tones, not at all as if their words were confidential—at least she might have the benefit of them.

"That was a capital lecture," the elder of the two was saying. "Cuyler has had great advantages in his life in meeting on a familiar footing so many of our great men. When you get thinking of these things, and of the many men whom you would like to know intimately, what is the thought that strikes you most forcibly?"

"That I am glad I belong to the 'royal family,' and have the opportunity of knowing intimately and holding close personal relations with Him who 'spake as never man spake.'"

The other answered in a rare, rich tone of suppressed jubilance of feeling.

"Exactly!" his friend said; "and when you can leave the fullness of that thought long enough to take another, there is the looking forward to actual fellowship and communion not only with him, but with all these glorious men who are living here, and who have gone up yonder."

Ruth turned abruptly away. The very thought that possessed the heart of the plain-looking man and that so annoyed her; and these two, whom to know was an honor, were looking forward to that consummation as the height of it all!



CHAPTER XVI.

A WAR OF WORDS.

"Well, why not?" she said, as she went slowly down the aisle. Of course all these people would be in heaven together, and why should they not look forward to a companionship untrameled by earthly forms and conventionalities, and uncumbered by the body in its present dull and ponderous state? What a chance to get into the best society! the highest circle! real best, too, not made up of money, or blood, or dress, or any of the flimsy and silly barriers that fenced people in and out now. Then at once she felt her own inconsistency in growing disgusted with the plainly-dressed, common-looking man. If he did really belong to that "royal family," why not rejoice over it? Wasn't she the foolish one? She by no means liked these reflections, but she could not get away from them.

"How do you do?" said a clear, round voice behind her; not speaking to her, but to some one whom he was very glad to see, judging from his tone. And the voice was peculiar; she had been listening to it for an hour, and could not be mistaken; it belonged to Dr. Cuyler himself. She turned herself suddenly. Here was a chance for a nearer view, and to see who was being greeted so heartily. It was the little lady whose society had been thrust upon her that morning by Flossy. And they were shaking hands as though they were old and familiar acquaintances!

"It is good to see your face again," that same hearty voice which seemed to have so much good fellowship in it was saying. "I didn't know you were to be here; I'm real glad to see you again, and what about the husband and the dear boy?"

At which point it occurred to Miss Ruth Erskine that she was listening to conversation not designed for her ears. She moved away suddenly, in no way comforted or sweetened as to her temper by this episode. Why should that little bit of an insignificant woman have the honor of such a cordial greeting from the great man, while he did not even know of her existence?

To be sure, Dr. Cuyler had baptized and received into church fellowship and united in marriage the little woman with whom he was talking; but Ruth, even if she had known these circumstances, was in no mood to attach much importance to them.

She wandered away from the crowd down by the lake-side. She stopped at Jerusalem on her way, and poked her parasol listlessly into the sand of which the hills lying about that city were composed, and thought:

"What silly child's play all this was! How absurd to suppose that people were going to get new ideas by playing at cities with bits of painted board and piles of sand! Even if they could get a more distinct notion of its surroundings, what difference did it make how Jerusalem looked, or where it stood, or what had become of the buildings?"

This last, as it began dimly to dawn upon her, that it was useless to deny the fact that even such listless and disdainful staring as she had vouchsafed to this make-believe city had located it, as it had not been located before, in her brain.

When she produced the flimsy question, "What difference does it make?" you can see at once the absurd mood that had gotten possession of her, and you lose all your desire to argue with any one who feels as foolish as that. Neither had Ruth any desire to argue with herself; she was disgusted with her mind for insisting on keeping her up to a strain of thought.

"A lovely place to rest!" she said, aloud, and indignantly, giving a more emphatic poke with her parasol, and quite dislodging one of the buildings in Jerusalem. "One's brain is just kept at high pressure all the time."

Now, why this young lady's brain should have been in need of rest she did not take the trouble to explain, even to herself. She sat herself down presently under one of the trees by the lake-side and gave herself up to plans. She was tired of Chautauqua; of that she was certain. It stirred her up, and the process was uncomfortable. Her former composed life suited her taste better. She must get away. There was no earthly reason why she should not go at once to Saratoga. A host of friends were already there, and certain other friends would be only too glad to follow as soon as ever they heard of her advent in that region. Before she left that rustic settee under the trees she had the programme all arranged.

"We will get through to-morrow as we best can," she said, sighing over the thought that to-morrow being the Sabbath would perforce be spent there, "and then on Monday morning Flossy and I will just run away to Saratoga and leave those two absurd girls to finish their absurd scheme in the best way they can."

And having disposed of Flossy as though she were a bit of fashionable merchandise without any volition of her own, Ruth felt more composed and went at once to dinner.

There came an astonishing interference to this planning, from no other than Flossy herself. To the utter amazement of each of the girls, she quietly refused to be taken to Saratoga; nor did she offer any other excuse for this astonishing piece of self-assertion than that she was having a good time and meant to finish it. And to this she adhered with a pertinacity that was very bewildering, because it was so very new. Marion laughed over her writing, to which she had returned the moment dinner was concluded.

"That is right, Flossy," she said, "I'm glad to see Chautauqua is having an effect of some sort on one of us. You are growing strong-minded; mind isn't a bad thing to have; keep to yours. Ruth, I am astonished at you; I shall have to confess that you are disappointing me, my child. Now, I rather expected this dear little bit of lace and velvet to give up, conquered, in less than a week, but I said to myself, 'Ruth Erskine has pluck enough to carry her through a month of camp-life,' and here you are quenched at the end of four days."

"It isn't the camp-life," Ruth said, irritably. "I am not so much a baby as to care about those things to such a degree that I can't endure them, though everything is disagreeable enough; but that isn't the point at all."

Marion turned and looked at her curiously.

"What on earth is the point then? What has happened to so disgust you with Chautauqua?"

"The point is, that I am tired of it all. It is unutterably stupid! I suppose I have a right to be tired of a silly scheme that ought never to have been undertaken, if I choose to be, have I not, without being called in question by any one?"

And feeling more thoroughly vexed, not only with the girls, but with herself, than ever she remembered feeling before, Ruth arose suddenly and sought refuge under the trees outside the tent.

Marion maintained a puzzled silence. This was a new phase in Ruth's character, and one hard to manage.

Flossy looked on the point of crying. She was not used to crossing the wills of those who had influence over her, but she was very determined as to one thing: she was not going to leave Chautauqua.

"Nothing could tempt me to go to Saratoga just now," she said, earnestly.

"Why?" asked Marion, and receiving no answer at all felt that Flossy puzzled her as much as Ruth had done. However, she set herself to work to restore peace.

"This letter is done," she said, gayly, folding her manuscript. "It is a perfectly gushing account of yesterday's meeting, for some of which I am indebted to the Buffalo reporters; for I have given the most thrilling parts where I wasn't present. Now I'm going to celebrate. Come in, Ruth, we are of the same mind precisely. I would gladly accompany you on the afternoon train to Saratoga with the greatest pleasure, were it not for certain inconveniences connected with my pocket-book, and a desire to replenish it by writing up this enterprise. But since we can't go to Saratoga, let's you and I go to Mayville. It is a city of several hundred inhabitants, six or eight, certainly, I should think; and we can have an immense amount of fun out of the people and the sights this afternoon, and escape the preaching. I haven't got to write another letter until Monday. Come, shall we take the three o'clock boat?"

Neither of these young ladies could have told what possible object there could be in leaving the lovely woods in which they were camped and going off to the singularly quiet, uninteresting little village of Mayville, except that it was, as they said, a getting away from the preaching—though why two young ladies, with first-class modern educations, should find it so important to get themselves away from some of the first speakers in the country they did not stop to explain even to themselves. However, the plan came to Ruth as a relief, and she unhesitatingly agreed to it; so they went their ways—Flossy to the afternoon meeting (since Eurie declared herself so far convalescent as to be entirely able to remain alone) and the two of the party who had prided themselves up to this time on their superiority of intellect down to the wharf to take the boat for Mayville.

The ride thither on the lovely lake was almost enough to excuse them for their folly. But the question what to do with themselves afterward was one that burdened them during all that long summer afternoon. They went to the Mayville House and took a walk on the piazza, and the boarders looked at them in curiosity, and wondered if it were really a pleasanter walk than the green fields over at Chautauqua.

They ordered dinner and ate it at the general table with great relish, Ruth rejoicing over this return to civilized life. One episode of the table must be noted. Opposite them sat a gentleman who, either from something in their appearance, or more probably from the reasonable conclusion that all the strangers who had gathered at the quiet little village were in some way associated with the great gathering, addressed them as being part of that great whole.

"You people are going to reap a fine harvest, pecuniarily, to-morrow; but how about the fourth commandment? You Christians lay great stress on that document whenever a Sunday reading-room or something of that sort is being contemplated, don't you?"

The remark was addressed to both of them, but Ruth was too much occupied with the strangeness of the thought that she was again being counted among "Christian people" to make any answer. Not so Marion. Her eyes danced with merriment, but she answered with great gravity:

"We believe in keeping holy the Sabbath day, of course. What has that to do with Chautauqua. Haven't you consulted the programme and read: 'No admission at the gates or docks'?"

The gentleman smiled incredulously.

"I have read it," he said, significantly, "and doubtless many believe it implicitly. I hope their faith won't be shaken by hearing the returns from tickets counted over in the evening."

There was a genuine flush of feeling on Marion's face now.

"Do you mean to say," she asked, haughtily, "that you have no faith in the published statement that the gates will be closed, or do you mean that the association have changed their minds? Because if you have heard the latter, I can assure you it is a mistake, as I heard the matter discussed by those in authority this very morning; and they determined to adhere rigidly to the rules."

"I have no doubt they will, so far as lies in their power," the gentleman said, with an attempt at courtesy in his manner. "But the trouble is, the thing is absurd on the face of it. If I hold a ticket for an entertainment, which the Association have sold to me, it is none of their business on what day I present it, provided the entertainment is in progress. They have no right to keep me out, and they are swindling me out of so much money if they do it."

"You have changed your argument," Marion said, with a flash of humor in her eyes. "You were talking about the amount of money that the Association were to earn to-morrow, not the amount which you were to lose by not being allowed to come in. However, I am willing to talk from that standpoint. If you hold the season ticket of the Association, and are stopping outside, you will be admitted, of course. It is held to be as reasonable a way to go to church as though you harnessed your horses at home and drove, on the Sabbath, to your regular place of worship. But you buy no ticket for the Sabbath, and none is received from you; and if you choose not to go, the Association neither makes nor loses by the operation, and, so far as money is concerned, is entirely indifferent which you decide to do. What fault can possibly be found with such an arrangement?"

"Well," said the gentleman, with a quiet positiveness of tone, "I haven't a season ticket, and I don't mean to buy one, and I mean to go down there to meeting to-morrow, and I expect to get in."

"I dare say," Marion answered, with glowing cheeks. "The grounds are extensive, you know, and they are not walled in. I haven't the least doubt but that hundreds can creep through the brush, and so have the gospel free. There is something about 'he that climbeth up some other way being a thief and a robber;' but, of course, the writer could not have had Chautauqua in mind; and even if it applies, it would be only stealing from an Association, which is not stealing at all, you know."

"You are hard on me," the gentleman said, flushing in his turn, and the listeners, of whom there were many, laughed and seemed to enjoy the flashing of words. "I have no intention of creeping or climbing in. I shall present the same sort of ticket which took me in to-day, and if it doesn't pass me I will send you a dispatch to let you know, if you will give me your address."

"And if you do get in, and will let me know, I will report at once to the proper authorities that the gate-keepers have been unfaithful to their trust," said Marion, triumphantly.

"But, my dear madam, what justice is there in that? I have paid my money, and what business is it to them when I present my ticket? That is keeping me out of my just dues."

"Oh, not a bit of it; that is, if you can read, and have, as you admit, read their printed statement that you are not invited to the ground on Sunday. Your fifty-cent ticket will admit you on Monday. And you surely will not argue that the Association has not a right to limit the number of guests that it will entertain over the Sabbath?"

"Yes, I argue that it is their business to let me in whenever I present their ticket."

Marion laughed outright.

"That is marvelous!" she said. "It is wicked for them to receive payment for your coming in on the Sabbath, and it is wicked for them not to let you in on your ticket. Really, I don't see what the Association are to do. They are committing sin either way it is put. I see no way out of it but to have refused to sell you any tickets at all. Would that have made it right?"

The laugh that was raised over this innocently put question seemed to irritate her new acquaintance. He spoke hastily.

"It is a Sabbath-breaking concern, viewed in any light that you choose to put it. There is no sense in holding camp-meetings over the Sabbath, and every one agrees that they have a demoralizing effect."

"Do you mean me to understand you to think that the several thousand people who are now stopping at Chautauqua will be breaking the Sabbath by going out of their tents to-morrow and walking down to the public service?"

The bit of sophistry in this meekly put question was overlooked, or at least not answered, and the logical young gentleman asked:

"If they think Sabbath services in the woods so helpful, why are they not consistent? Let them throw the meeting open for all who wish to come, making the gospel without money and without price, as they pretend it is. Why isn't that done?"

"Well, there are at least half a dozen reasons. I wonder you have not thought of one of them. In the first place, that, of course, would tempt to a great deal of Sabbath traveling, a thing which they carefully guard against now by refusing to admit all travelers. And in the second place, it would give the Chautauqua people a great deal to do in the way of entertaining so large a class of people. As it is, they have quite as much as they care to do to make comfortable the large company who belong to their family. And in the third place—But perhaps you do not care to hear all the reasons?"

He ignored this question also, and went back to one of her arguments.

"They don't keep travelers away at all, even by your own admission. What is to hinder hundreds of them from coming here to-day and buying season tickets in order to get in to-morrow?"

He had the benefit of a most quizzical glance then from Marion's shining eyes before she answered.

"Oh, well, if the people are really so hungering and thirsting for the gospel, as it is dispensed at Chautauqua, that they are willing to act a lie, by pretending that they are members who have been and are to be in regular attendance, and then are willing to pay two dollars and a half for the Sunday meeting, I don't know but I think they ought to be allowed to creep in. Don't you?"



CHAPTER XVII.

GETTING READY TO LIVE.

Amid the laughter that followed this retort the company rose up from the table and went their various ways, to meet, perhaps, again.

"How on earth do you manage to keep so thoroughly posted in regard to Chautauqua affairs? One would think you were the wife of the private secretary. I shouldn't have known whether the gates were to be opened or closed to-morrow."

This from Ruth as the two girls paced the long piazza while waiting for the carriage which was to take them to the boat; for, having exhausted the resources of Mayville for entertainment, they were about to return to Chautauqua.

Marion laughed.

"I'm here in the capacity of a newspaper writer, please remember," she answered promptly, "and what I don't know I can imagine, like the rest of that brilliant fraternity. I am not really positive about a great many of the statements that I made, except on the general principle that these people belong to the class who are very much given to doing according to their printed word. It says on the circulars that the gates will be closed on the Sabbath, and I dare say they will be. At least, we have a right to assume such to be the case until it is proven false."

"What class of people do you mean who are given to doing as they have agreed? Christian people, do you refer to?"

"Well, yes; the sort of Christians that one meets at such a gathering as this. As a rule, the namby-pamby Christians stay away from such places; or, if they come, they float off to Saratoga or some more kindred climate. I beg your pardon, Ruthie, that doesn't mean you, you know, because you are not one of any sort."

"Then do you take it to be their religion which inclines you to trust to their word, without having an individual acquaintance with them?"

Marion shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, bother!" she said, gayly, "you are not turning theologian, or police detective in search of suspicious characters, are you? I never pretend to pry into my notions for and against people and things; if I was betrayed into anything that sounded like common sense I beg your pardon. I am out on a frolic, and mean to have it if there is any such thing."

"Well, before you go back into absolute nonsense let me ask you one more question. Do you really feel as deeply as you pretended to that man, on all these questions of the Chautauqua conscience? I mean, is it a vital point in your estimation whether people go there to church on Sunday or not?"

Marion hesitated, and a fine glow deepened on her face as she said, after a little, speaking with grave dignity:

"I do not know that I can explain myself to you, Ruth, and I dare say that I seem to you like a bundle of contradictions; but it is a real pleasure to me to come in contact with people who have earnest faith and eager enthusiasm over anything, and principle enough to stand by their views through evil and good report. In this way, and to a great degree, this meeting is a positive delight to me, though I know personally as little about the feeling from which they think their actions take rise as any mortal can. Does that answer satisfy you, my blessed mother confessor? or are you more muddled than ever over what I do, and especially over what I do not believe?"

"If I believed as much as you do I should look further."

Ruth said this with emphasis; and there was that in it which, despite her attempts to throw it off, set Marion to thinking, and kept her wonderfully quiet during their return trip.

On the whole, the flight to Mayville was not viewed entirely in the light of a success. Ruth had been quiet and grave for some time, when she suddenly spoke in her most composed and decided voice:

"I shall go to Saratoga on Monday, whether any one else will or not; I shall find plenty of friends to welcome me, and I shall take the morning train from here."

But she didn't.

Meantime Flossy's afternoon had been an uninterrupted satisfaction to her. She attended the children's meeting, and it was perfectly amazing to her newly awakened brain how many of the stories, used to point truths for the children, touched home to her.

Dr. Hurlbut, of Plainfield, seemed to have especially planned his address for the purpose of hitting at some of the markedly weak points in her character, though no doubt the good man would have been utterly amazed had he known her thoughts.

She listened and laughed with the rest over the story of the poor tailor who promised a coat to a customer for one, two and three weeks, heaping up his promises one on the other until he had a perfect pyramid of them, only to topple about his ears. She heard with the rest the magnificent voice ring out the solemn conclusion:

"Children, he did not mean to lie. He did not even think he was a liar. He only broke his promises."

They all heard, and I don't know how many shivered over it, but I do know that to Flossy Shipley it seemed as if some one had struck her an actual blow. Was it possible that the easy sentences, the easy promises, to "write," to "come," to "bring this," to "tell that," made so gracefully, sounding so kindly, costing so little because forgotten almost as soon as her head was turned away, actually belonged in that list described by the ugly word "lie." Flossy had been a special sinner in this department of polite wickedness because it just accorded with her nature; such promises were so easy to make, and seemed to please people, and were so easy to forget. Like the tailor, she hadn't meant to be a liar, nor dreamed that she was one.

But her wide-open ears took it all in, and her roused brain turned the thought over and over, until, be it known to you, that that girl's happy pastor, when he receives from her a decided, "Yes, sir, I will do it," may rest assured that unless something beyond her control intervenes she will be at her post.

So much did Dr. Hurlbut accomplish that afternoon without ever knowing it. There were many things done that afternoon, I suspect, that only the light of the judgement day will reveal. Over the story of the two workmen, who each resolved to stick to a certain effort for six months, and did it, the one earning thereby a patent right worth thousands of dollars, and the other teaching a little dog how to dance to the whistling of a certain tune, Flossy looked unutterably sober, while the laughter swelled to a perfect roar around her. It was hard to feel that not "six months" only, but a dozen years of intelligent life, were gone from her, and she had not even taught a dog to dance a jig! That was the very way she put it in her humility; and I do not say that she placed it too low, because really I don't know that Flossy Shipley had ever had even so settled a purpose in life as that! She had simply fluttered around the edge of this solemn business that we call living.

But along with the sober thought glowed the earnest purpose: given another dozen years to my young lady's life and they will bear a different record; and whatever they bear, Dr. Hurlburt will be in a sense responsible for, though he never saw her and probably never will. Verily this living is a complicated bewildering thing Well for us that all the weight of the responsibility is not ours to bear.

There was still another story, and over it Flossy's lips parted, and her eyes glowed with feeling. That wonderful machine that the most skillful workmen tried in vain to repair, that was useless and worthless, until the name of the owner was found on it, and he was sent for, then indeed it found the master-hand, the only one who could right it; she did not need Dr. Hurlbut's glowing application. "So He who made us, and engraved his name, his image, on our bodies, can alone take our hearts and make them right."

Flossy listened to this and the sentences that followed, thrilling her heart with their power and beauty—thrilling as they would not have done one week ago, for did she not know by actual experience just how blessed a worker the great Maker was? Had she not carried her heart to him, and had he not left his indelible impression there? Oh, this was a wonderful meeting to Flossy—one that she will never forget—one that many others will have reason to remember, because of the way in which she listened. But was it not strange, the way in which her education was being cared for?

After tea she stood at the entrance of the tent, looking out for the girls—looking out, also, on the cool, quiet sunset and the glory spread everywhere, for there had been sunshine that day, part of the time, and there was a clear sun setting. Under her arm she held the treasure which she had in the morning determined to possess—a good, plain, large-print Bible, not at all like the velvet-covered one that lay on her toilet-stand at home, but such as the needs of Bible students at Chautauqua had demanded, and therefore much better fitted for actual service than the velvet.

Among the many passers-by came Mrs. Smythe. She halted before Flossy.

"Good-evening. I thought your party must have left. I haven't seen you since Thursday. Haven't you been fearfully bored? We are going to leave on Monday morning—going to Saratoga. Don't some of you want to join us?

"I don't know," Flossy said, thoughtfully mindful of Ruth and her plan that had not worked. "It is possible that Miss Erskine may Do your entire party go?"

"Oh, not my nephew, of course! Nothing could tear him away. He is perfectly charmed with all this singing and praying and preaching, but I confess it is too much of a good thing for me. I am not intellectually inclined, I like the music very well, and some of the addresses are fine; but there is such a thing as carrying meetings to excess."

At this point she turned quickly at the sound of a firm step behind her, and greeted a young man.

"Speak of angels and you hear their wings, or the squeak of their boots," she said. "We were just talking about you, Evan. My nephew, Mr. Roberts, Miss Shipley. I believe you have never met before."

Had they not! There was a heightened flush on the cheek of each as they shook hands. It was clear that each recognized the other.

"Are we strangers?" he asked, with a bright smile, speaking so low that Mrs. Smythe, whose attention had already wandered from them to a group who were passing, did not hear the words, "On the contrary, I think we are related, though I do not know that we have happened to hear each other's names before."

Flossy understood the relationship—sons and daughters of one Father—for she knew this was the young man who had twice questioned her concerning her allegiance to that Father. Also, she remembered him as the only one whom she had ever heard pray for her.

Mrs. Smythe called out a gay good-evening to them, and joined a party of friends, and Mr. Roberts leaned against a tree and prepared to cultivate the acquaintance of his newly-found relative.

"You have one of those large, sensible-looking Bibles, I see," he said. "I have been very much tempted, but I could not make myself feel that I really needed one."

"I really needed mine," Flossy said, smiling. "I left my Bible at home. I had not such a thought as bringing it along. I feel now as if I had a treasure that I didn't know how to use. It is quite new to me. I don't know where to read first, but I suppose it makes no difference."

"Indeed it does make great difference," he said, smiling, "and you will enjoy finding out how to read it. Chautauqua is a good place for such a study, and the Bible reading this evening is an excellent place to commence. Are you going?"

"Yes, indeed!" Flossy said, with brightening eyes. "I have been looking forward to it all day. I can't think what a Bible reading is. Do they just read verses in the Bible?"

"Yes," he said, smiling. "It is just Bible verses, with a word of explanation now and then and a little singing. But the Bible verses are something remarkable, as you will see. It is nearly time for service. Are you ready? Shall we walk down and secure seats?"

So they went down together it the early twilight, and took seats under the trees amid the glowing of brilliant lights and the soft sound of music coming from the piano on the stand.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SILENT WITNESS.

That Bible reading! I wish I could make it appear to you as it did to Flossy; Shipley. Not that either, because I trust that the sound of the Bible verses is not so utterly new to you as it was to her—rather, that it might sound to you as it did to the earnest-souled young man who sat beside her, taking in ever; word with as much eagerness as if some of the verses had not been his dear and long-cherished friends; nay, with more eagerness on that account.

Do you know Dr. Parsons, of Boston? It was he who conducted that reading, and his theme was, "The Coming of the Lord."

Let me give you just a few of the groupings as he called them forth from his congregation under the trees, and which he called "the Lord's own testimonies to his coming:"

"Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." "Therefore, be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh." "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." "Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is."

Four solemn warnings from the Head of the vineyard. They reached to Flossy's very soul, and she had that old well-known thrill of feeling that almost every Christian has some time experienced.

"If I had only been there; if He had spoken such words to me, I could never, never have forgotten, or been neglectful. If I could only have heard Him speak!" And as if in answer to this longing cry Dr. Parsons himself read the next solemn sentence, read it in such a way that it almost seemed as if this might be the sacred garden, and Himself standing among the olive-trees speaking even to her:

"And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch." Here, then, was her direction from His own lips. Though centuries had passed since He spoke them they echoed down to her. She was not overwhelmed; she was not crushed by the new and solemn sense of her calling that flowed over her. The Lord himself was there in every deed, and whispered in her ear, "It is I, be not afraid." And her heart responded solemnly, "Aye, Lord, I feel thy presence; I have been sleeping, but I am awake, and from henceforth I will watch."

That Bible reading was like a whole week of theological study to Flossy. It was not that she learned simply about the blessed assurance, the weight of testimony amounting to an absolute certainty, concerning the coming of the Lord. But there were so many truths growing out from that, so many incentives to be up and doing; for she found before the reading closed that one must not only watch, but in the watching work; and there were so many reasons why she should, and so many hints as to the way and the time. Then there was, also, the most blessed discovery that the Bible was not a book to treat like an arithmetic. That one must read through the Book of Genesis, and then go on to Exodus, a chapter to-day, two chapters to-morrow, and perhaps some days, when one was not in too great a hurry and could read very fast, take half a dozen chapters, and so get through it. But she learned that there were little connecting links of sweetness all the way through the book; that she had a right to look over in Revelation for an explanation of something that was stated in Deuteronomy. She did not learn all this, either, at this one time; but she got a vivid hint of it, strong enough to keep her hunting and pulling at the lovely golden thread of the Bible for long years to come.

There were special points about the closing verses that throbbed in her heart, and awakened purposes that never slept again. It was the gentleman who sat beside her who read the solemn words of the verse:

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?"

His voice was very earnest, and his face had an eager look of solemn joy.

From it she felt the truth that while the words which he had been reading were full of solemnity, and while he felt the sense of responsibility, there was also that in them which filled his heart with great joy, for when that time should come would not he be with his Lord?

Again, when a little later he gave the closing verses of this wonderful lesson, reading them from her Bible, because in the dimness the print was larger and clearer than his own, they made the conclusion of the whole matter:

"Ye are the children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of the darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober."

He marked it with his pencil as he finished reading, and as he returned the book to her keeping he said with a smile:

"We will, shall we not?"

And it felt to Flossy like a convenant, witnessed by the Lord himself. But Dr. Parsons, you know, knew nothing of all this. Chautauqua was the place for sowing the seed; they could only hope that the Lord of the vineyard was looking on and watching over the coming harvest; it was not for their eyes to see the fruits.

Sunday morning at Chautauqua! None of all the many hundreds who spent the day within the shadow of that sweet and leafy place have surely forgotten how the quaint and quiet beauty of the place and its surroundings fell upon them; they know just how the birds sang among those tall old trees; they know just how still and blue and clear the lake looked as they caught glimpses of it through the quivering green of myriad leaves; they know just how clearly the Chautauqua bells cut the air and called to the worship. It needs not even these few words to recall the place in its beauty to the hearts of those who worshiped there that day; and for you who did not see it nor feel its power there is no use to try to describe Chautauqua. Only this, it is a place to love and look back to with a sort of sweet and tender longing all your lives.

Our girls felt somewhat of the sacredness of the place; at least they went around with a more decided feeling that it was Sunday than they had ever realized before. Three of them did.

To Flossy this day was like the revelation of a new heaven and a new earth. Her first Sunday in Christ!

There was no sunshine, neither was there rain. Just a hush of all things, and sweetness everywhere.

After breakfast Ruth and Marion lolled on their cots and studied the programme, while the other two made hasty toilets, and announced their intention of going to Sunday-school.

"What in the name of sense takes you?" queried Marion, rising on one elbow, the better to view this strange phenomena.

"Why I have a mission," Eurie said. "About three thousand people have been talking all this week about teaching a few Bible verses to some children to-day, and I am going to find out what they are, and what is so wonderful about them. Besides, I was taken for a being named Miss Rider, and on inquiry I find her to be what they call an infant-class teacher, so I am going to hunt her up and see if we look alike and are affinities."

Flossy chose to make no answer at all, and presently the two departed together to attend their first Sabbath-school since they were known as children. As they passed a certain tent Eurie's ready ears gained information from other passers-by:

"This is where the little children are; Miss Rider is going to teach them."

Eurie halted.

"I'm going in here," she said, decidedly, to Flossy. "That is the very lady I am in search of." And seeing Flossy hesitate, she added: "Oh, you may go on, it is just as well to divide our forces; we may each have some wonderful adventure. You go your way and I will go mine, and we'll see what will come of it."

The tent was full apparently; but that spirit which was rife at Chautauqua, and which prompted everybody to try to look out a little for the comfort of everybody else, made a seat full of ladies crowd a little and make room for her. Rows and rows of little people with smiling faces and shining eyes! It was a pretty sight. Eurie gave eager attention to the lady who was talking to them, and laughed a little to herself over the dissimilarity of their appearance.

"Hair and eyes and height, and everything else, totally unlike me!" she said. "She is older than I, too, ever so much. She doesn't look as I thought Miss Rider would."

But what she was saying proved to be very interesting, not only to the little people, but to Eurie. She listened eagerly. It was important to discover what had been so stirring the Sunday-school world all the week. She was not left in doubt; the story was plainly, clearly, fascinatingly told; it was that tender one of the sick man so long waiting, waiting to be helped into the pool; disappointed year after year, until one blessed day Jesus came that way and asked one simple question, and received an eager answer, and gave one brief command, and, lo! the work was done! The long, long years of pain and trial were over! Do you think this seemed like a wonderful story to Eurie? Do you think her cheeks glowed with joy over the thought of the great love and the great power of Jesus?

Alas, alas! to her there was no beauty in him. This simple tender story did not move her as the commonplace account of a common sickness and common recovery given in a village paper would have done. The very most that she thought of it was this: "That Miss Rider has a good deal of dramatic power. How well she tells the story! But dear me! how stupid it must be. What is the use of taking so much trouble for these little midgets? They don't understand the story, and of what use would it be to them if they did? Something that happened to somebody hundreds of years ago."

But now her attention was arrested by the sound of a very loud whisper just behind her, given in a childish voice. "Miss Rider, Miss Rider," the child was saying, and emphasizing her whisper by a pull at a lady's dress. Eurie turned quickly; the dress belonged to a young, fair girl, with fresh glowing face and large bright eyes, that shone now with feeling as she listened eagerly to this story, and to the comments of the children concerning it. Then she in turn whispered to the lady nearest her: "Is it Miss Rider who is teaching?" "No, it is Mrs. Clark, of Newark. That is Miss Rider leaning against a post."

Then Eurie looked back to her. "She is no older than I," she murmured; "indeed not so old, I should think. Her hair must be exactly the color of mine, and we are about the same height. I wonder if we do look in the least alike? What do I care!" Yet still she looked; the bright face fascinated her. The little child had won the lady's attention; and the lips and eyes, and indeed the whole face, were vivid with animation as she bent low and answered some troubled question, appealing to the diagram on the board, and making clear her answer by rapid gestures with her fingers. The lady beside Eurie volunteered some more information.

"Miss Rider was to have taught this class, I heard. I wonder why she didn't?"

"I don't know," Eurie answered, briefly. Then she looked back at her again. "She is jealous," she said to herself. "She was to have taught this class this morning, and by some blundering she was left out, and she is disgusted. She will say that such teaching as this amounts to nothing; she could have done it five times as well; or, if she doesn't say that last, she will think it and act it. I have no doubt these rival teachers cordially hate each other, like politicians."

Nevertheless that fresh young face, with its glow of feeling, fascinated her. She kept looking at her; she gave no more attention to the lesson. What was it, after all, but an old story that had nothing to do with her; the fact that it was taken from the Bible was proof enough of that. But she watched Miss Rider. The session closed and that lady pressed forward to assist in giving out papers. The crowd pushed the willing Eurie nearer to her, so near that she could catch the sentence that she was eagerly saying to the lady near her.

"Isn't Mrs. Clark delightful? It was such a beautiful lesson this morning. I think it is such a treat and such a privilege to be allowed to listen to her. Yes, darling," this last to another little one claiming a word, "of course Jesus can hear you now, just as well as though He stood here. He often says to people, 'Wilt thou be made whole?' He has said so to you this morning."

Eurie turned away quickly. She had had her lesson. It wasn't from the Bible, nor yet did she find it in those hundred little faces so eager to know the story in all its details. It was just in that young face not so old as hers, so bright, so strong, so thoroughly alert, and so thoroughly enlisted in this matter. The vivid contrast between that life and hers struck Eurie with the force of a new revelation.

She went to the general service under the trees; she heard a sermon from Dr. Pierce, so full of power and eloquence that to many who heard it there came new resolves, new purposes, new plans. I beg her pardon, she did not listen; she simply occupied a seat and looked as though she was a listener.

But the truth was, she had not learned yet to listen to sermons. The very fact that it was a sermon made it clear to her mind that there was to be nothing in it for her; this had been her education. In reality, during that hour of worship she was engaged in watching the changeful play of expression on Miss Rider's face, as her eyes brightened and glowed with enthusiasm or trembled with tears, according as the preacher's words roused or subdued her.

Well, Eurie had her lesson. It was not from the Bible, it was not from the preacher's lips except incidentally, but it was from a living epistle. "Ye shall be witnesses of me," was the promise of Christ in the long ago, just before the cloud received him out of sight. Is not that promise verified to us often and often when we know it not?

Miss Rider had no means of knowing as she sat a listener that Sabbath morning that she was witnessing for Christ. But she was just as surely speaking for him as though she had stood up amid that throng and said: "I love Jesus." "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord." And the poet has said: "They also serve who only stand and wait." Blessed are those in whom the waiting and the service go together.



CHAPTER XIX.

AN OLD STORY.

Meantime Flossy, deserted by her companion, made her way somewhat timidly down to the stand, amazed by the great congregation of people who had formed themselves into a Sunday-school. With all their haste the girls had gotten a very late start. The opening exercises were all over, and the numerous teachers were turning to their work. Strangely enough, the first person whom Flossy's eye took in distinctly enough for recognition was Mr. Roberts. He had recognized her, also, and was coming toward her.

"How do you do this morning?" he said, holding out his hand. "Do you know I have a mission for you? There are two boys who seem to belong to nobody, and to have nothing in common with this gathering, except curiosity. The superintendent has twice tried to charm them in, but without success—they will come no further than that tree. I think they have slipped in from the village, probably in a most unorthodox fashion, and what I am coming at is, will you go out under the tree to them and beguile them into attending a Sabbath-school for once in their lives? They look to me as though it was probably a rare occurrence."

Now you are not to suppose that this invitation came to Flossy with the same sound that it would have had to you, if Mr. Roberts had come to you that Sabbath morning and asked you to tell those two boys a Bible story. It is something that you have probably been doing a good deal of, all your grown-up life, and two boys at Chautauqua are no more to you than two boys anywhere else, except that there is a delightful sensation connected with having a class-room out in the open air. But imagine yourself suddenly confronted by Dr. Vincent, and asked if you would be so kind as to step on the platform and preach to five thousand people, from a text that he would select for you! Now you have something of an idea as to how this request felt to Flossy. A rare glow spread all over her face, and she looked up at her questioner with eyes that were quivering in tears.