"I know the mountain;" Marion said, reaching out, and clasping Ruth's hand. "The name of it is Calvary, it is safe, and it is sufficient for us all. Ruthie, we three are together in this thing."

What those girls said to each other then and there is sacred to them. But if I could, I would tell you something of the joy they felt.

Flossy still leaned over the railing, a small quiet speck in the moonlight. Marion kept turning her head in her direction. "Our poor little Flossy would not understand much about this experience, I suppose," she said at last; "she is such a child, and yet, I don't know—sometimes I have fancied that she thinks more than we give her credit for. That at least she has lately."

"Let us tell her, anyway," Eurie, said, "we can't know what good it may do. If we had not been so dreadfully afraid of each other, during the last few days, we might have helped each other a good deal; for my part, I have learned a lesson on which I mean to practice."

Ruth looked up quickly, a rare smile in her eyes; she opened her lips to speak to them, then seemed to change her mind and raised her voice: "Flossy!" And Flossy came at her call.

"Come here," Ruth said, withdrawing her hand from Marion's, and winding her arm around the small figure beside her.

"Flossy, the girls have had our very experience all by themselves, and they want to know how long it is since you began to think about this matter for yourself."

Flossy turned her soft blue eyes on Marion.

"The very night we came, Marion, and you made me come to the meeting in the rain, you remember? I heard that which I knew would never let me rest again, until I understood it and had it for my own. But I was very ignorant, and foolish, and I blundered along in the dark for three mortal days! After that Jesus found me, and I have known since what it is to live in the light."

"A Christian experience of ten whole days!" Eurie said. Of course she was the first one to rise from her surprise and get possession of her tongue.

"Flossy, you have had a chance to get a good way ahead instead of being behind, as we thought. You will have to show us the way."

"Isn't this just wonderful!" broke forth Marion, suddenly, an overwhelming sense coming over her, of the new relations that they four would henceforth bear to each other. "Why, girls, what would they say up there at the stand, if they could know what has come to each of us! I almost feel like going back and telling them all. Just think what a delight it would be to Dr. Vincent, and Dr. Deems, and, oh, to all of them. Isn't it queer to think how well we know them all, and they are not aware of our existence?"

"I don't believe people will have to wait to be introduced to each other when they get to heaven," Eurie said; "that is one of the first things I am going to do when I get there; hunt up some of these Chautauqua people and cultivate their acquaintance."

This sentence gave Flossy a new thought:

"We are really all going to heaven!"

She said it precisely as you might speak of a trip to Europe on which your heart had long been set.

"We are just as sure of it as though we were there this minute! Girls, don't you know how nice we thought it would be to be together at Chautauqua for two whole weeks? Now think of being together, there, for a million years!" But the thought which filled Flossy's heart with a sweet song of melody, and wreathed her face in glad smiles, was such an overwhelming one to Marion, so immense with power and possibility, that it seemed to her to take her very breath; she turned abruptly from the rest and walked to the Teasel's side to still the throbbing of her heart.

Meantime the boat had been filling with passengers, and now she was getting under way. Still the hush continued; the people stood closely around the railing, on the Chautauqua side, and looked lovingly back at the fair point of land that lay before them in glowing moonlight. Presently a leading voice began to sing:

"There's a land that is fairer than day, And by faith we can see it afar; For the Father waits over the way To prepare us a dwelling-place there. We shall meet in the sweet by and by, On that beautiful shore in the sweet by and by, We shall meet on that beautiful shore."

Before the chorus was reached, every voice that could sing at all must have taken up the strain. Marion, for the first time in years gave a hint of the full compass of her powers, making Ruth turn suddenly towards her, with a brightening face, for she saw how the singing and the playing could fit into each other, and do good service.

On and on stole the vessel through the silver water. The courteous captain came around quietly for his tickets, and to one and another with whose faces he had grown familiar he said: "We shall miss you; the Col. Phillips has been proud of carrying you all safely back and forth."

One said to him in return: "I hope, captain, we shall all land at last safe in the harbor." And the captain bowed his answer in silence. It would have been hard to speak words just then.

But ever and anon that leading voice took up words of song.

Still the song that best seemed to suit all hearts was that tender "By and by," and as the lights along the Chautauqua shore grew dim it rose again in swelling volume:

"We shall meet, we shall sing, we shall reign, In the land where the saved never die; We shall rest free from sorrow and pain, Safe at home in the sweet by and by."

Then the refrain, repeated and re-repeated, until, as the last lingering note of it died away, the boat touched at the wharf, and looking back, they saw that the Chautauqua lights were out, and silence and darkness had Fairpoint.

"Good-bye," Marion said, and she bowed towards the distant shore; she was smiling, but her lips were quivering.

"We shall meet in the sweet by and by," Flossy quoted, but her voice trembled.

"There is a chance to do grand work first, that the final meeting may be infinitely larger, because of us."

This the leading voice in the singing said, as he held out his hand to say good-bye. And as they took it some of the girls noticed for the first time that it was Mr. Roberts; as for Flossy, she had known it all the time.

"We are going to try to do some of the work, Mr. Roberts," Eurie said; "I have found the road to Bethany since I saw you, the real road, and we are going to try and keep it well trodden."

He was shaking hands with Flossy, as Eurie spoke, and he still held her hand while he answered: "Good news! There is plenty of work to do. It is well that Chautauqua has gathered in new reapers. I am coming to your city, next winter; I shall want to help you. Good-bye."

THE END