At least, so far as the matter of cards was concerned, she would never do so again. Her quiet had been disturbed. The process of reasoning by which she found herself disturbed was very simple. She had discovered, as if by accident, that her pastor; as she loved to call Dr. Dennis, lingering on the word, now that it had such a new meaning for her, disapproved of card-playing, not only for himself, but for her; at least that Col. Baker so supposed.

Now there must be some foundation for this belief of his. Either there was something in the nature of the game which Col. Baker recognized, and which she did not, that made him understand, as by instinct, that it would be disapproved by Dr. Dennis, or else he had heard him so express himself, or else he was totally mistaken, and was misrepresenting that gentleman's character.

She thought all this over as she sat staring into space, and she went one step further—she meant to discover which of these three statements was correct. If Dr. Dennis thought it wrong to play cards, then he must have reasons for so thinking. She accepted that at once as a necessity to the man. They must also have been carefully weighed reasons, else he would not have given them a place in his creed. This also was a necessity to a nature like his.

Clearly there was something here for her to study; but how to set about it? Over this she puzzled a good deal; she did not like to go directly to Dr. Dennis and ask for herself; she did not know how to set to work to discover for herself the truth; she could pray for light, that to be sure; but having brought her common sense with her into religious matters, she no more expected light to blaze upon her at the moment of praying for it, than she expected the sun to burst into the room despite the closing of blinds and dropping of curtain, merely because she prayed that it might shine.

Clearly if she wanted the sun, it was her part to open blinds and draw back curtains; clearly if she wanted mental light, it was her part to use the means that God had placed at her disposal. Thus much she realized. But not being a self-reliant girl, it resulted in her saying to Eurie Mitchell when she slipped in the next evening to spend an hour:

"I wish we girls could get together somewhere this evening; I have something to talk over that puzzles me a great deal."

You are to understand that the expression, "we girls," meant the four who had lived Chautauqua together; from henceforth and forever "we girls" who went through the varied experiences of life together that were crowded into those two weeks, would be separated from all other girls, and their intercourse would necessarily be different from any other friendships, colored always with that which they had lived together under the trees.

"Well," said Eurie, quick, as usual, to carry out what another only suggested, "I'm sure that is easily managed. We can call for Ruth, and go around to Marion's den; she is always in, and she never has any company."

"But Ruth nearly always has," objected Flossy, who had an instant vision of herself among the fashionable callers in the Erskine parlor, unable to get away without absolute rudeness.

"I'll risk Ruth if she happens to want to come with us," Eurie said, nodding her head sagely. "She will dispose of her callers in some way; strangle them, or what is easier and safer, simply ignore their existence and beg to be excused. Ruth is equal to any amount of well-bred rudeness; all that is necessary is the desire to perform a certain action, and she will do it."

This prophecy of Eurie's proved to be the case. Nellis Mitchell was called into service to see the girls safely over to the Erskine mansion, where they found two gentlemen calling on Ruth and her father. No sooner did she hear of their desire to be together, than, feeling instant sympathy with it, she said, "I'll go in five minutes." Then they heard her quiet voice in the parlor:

"Father, will you and our friends excuse me for the remainder of the evening, and will you enjoy my part of the call and yours too? I have just had a summons elsewhere that demands attention."

"Isn't that perfect in its propriety, besides bringing things to the exact point where she wants them to be?" whispered Eurie to Flossy as they waited in the hall. "Oh, it takes Ruth to manage."

"I wonder," said Flossy, with her far-away look, and half-distressed, wholly-perplexed curve of the lip—"I wonder if it is strictly true; that is what troubles me a good deal."

Oh, Dr. Hurlbut your address to the children that summer day under the trees was the germ of this shoot of sensitiveness for the strict truth, that shall bloom into conscientious fruit.

It was by this process that they were all together in Marion's den, as Eurie called her stuffed and uninviting little room. Never was mortal more glad to be interrupted than she, as she unceremoniously tossed aside school-books and papers, and made room for them around the table.

"You are a blessed trio," she said, exultantly. "What good angel put it into your hearts to come to me just now and here? I am in the dismals; have been down all day in the depths of swamp-land, feeling as if I hadn't a friend on earth, and didn't want one; and here you are, you blessed three."

"But we didn't come for fun or to comfort you, or anything of that sort," explained Flossy, earnestly, true to the purpose that had started her. "We came to talk something over."

"I don't doubt it. Talk it over then by all means. I'll talk at it with all my heart. We generally do talk something over, I have observed, when we get together; at least we do of late years. Which one wants to talk?"

Thus introduced, Flossy explained the nature of her perplexities; her occupation the evening before; the interruption from Dr. Dennis; the sweeping action of Col. Baker, and the consequent talk.

"Now do you suppose that is true?" she said, suddenly breaking off at the point where Col. Baker had assured her that all clergymen looked with utter disfavor on cards.

Marion glanced from one to another of the faces before her with an amused air; none of them spoke.

"It is rather queer," she said, at last, "that I have to be authority, or that I seem to be the only one posted, when I have but just emerged from a state of unbelief in the whole subject. But I tell you truly, my blessed little innocent, Col. Baker is well posted; not only the clergy, but he will find a large class of the most enlightened Christians, look with disapproval on the whole thing in all its variations."

"Why do they?" This from Flossy, with a perplexed and troubled tone.

"Well," said Marion, "now that question is more easily asked than answered. It requires an argument."

"An argument is just what I want; I like to have things explained. Before that, though, one thing that puzzles me is how should Col. Baker be so familiar with the views of clergymen?"

"That is a curious fact, my mousie; you will find it, I fancy, in all sorts of strange places. People who are not Christians seem to have an intuitive perception of the fitness of things. It is like dancing and theatre-going, and a dozen other questions. It is very unusual to meet people who do not sneer at Christians for upholding such amusements; they seem to realize an incongruity between them and the Christian profession. It was just as plain to me, I know, and I have sneered many a time over card-playing Christians, and here you are, dear little Flossy, among them, just for the purpose of teaching me not to judge."

Ruth, for the first time, took up the subject:

"If your statement is true, Marion, how is it that so many professed Christians indulge in these very things?"

"Precisely the question that I just asked myself while I was talking. By what means they become destitute of that keen insight into consistencies and inconsistencies, the moment they enter the lists as Christian people, is more than I can understand, unless it is because they decide to succumb to the necessity of doing as other people do, and let any special thinking alone as inconvenient and unprofitable. I don't know how it is; only you watch this question and think about it, and you will discover that just so surely as you come in contact with any who are active and alert in Christian work, whose religion you respect as amounting to something, you are almost sure to see them avoiding all these amusements. Who ever heard of a minister being asked to spend an evening in social card-playing! I presume that even Col. Baker himself knows that that would be improper, and he would be the first to sneer."

"Of course," Ruth said, "ministers were expected to be examples for other people to follow."

"Well, then," Flossy said, her perplexity in no way lessened, "ought we not to follow?"

Whereupon Marion clapped her hands.

"Little Flossy among the logicians!" she said. "That is the point, Ruth Erskine. If the example is for us to follow, why don't we follow? Now, what do you honestly think about this question yourself?"

"Why," said Ruth, hesitatingly, "I have always played cards, in select circles, being careful, of course, with whom I played; just as I am careful with whom I associate, and, contrary to your supposition, I have always supposed those people who frowned on such amusements to be a set of narrow-minded fanatics. And I didn't know that Christian people did frown on such amusements; though, to be sure, now that I think of it, there are certain ones who never come to card-parties nor dancing-parties. I guess the difficulty is that I have never thought anything about it."

Marion was looking sober.

"The fact is," she said, gravely, "that with all my loneliness and poverty and general forlornness, I have had a different bringing up from any of you. My father did not believe in any of these things."

"And he was a Christian man," Flossy said, quickly. "Then he must have had a reason for his belief. That is what I want to get at. What was it?"

"He found it in an old book," said Marion, looking at her, brightly, through shining eyes. "He found most of his knowledge and his hope and joy in that same book. The Bible was almost the only book he had, and he made much of that."

"And yet you hated the Bible!" Eurie said this almost involuntarily, with a surprised tone.

"I hated the way in which people lived it, so different from my father's way. I don't think I ever really discarded the book itself. But I was a fool; I don't mind owning that."

Flossy brought them back to the subject.

"But about this question," she said. "The Bible was just where I went for help, but I didn't find it; I looked in the Concordance for cards and for amusements, and for every word which I could think of, that would cover it, but I couldn't find anything."

Marion laughed again. This little morsel's ignorance of the Bible was to this girl, who had been an avowed infidel for more than a dozen years, something very strange.

"The Bible is a big book, darling," she said, still laughing. "But, after all, I fancy you will find something about the principle that governs cards, even if you cannot find the word."

Meantime Ruth had been for some minutes regarding Eurie's grave face and attentive eyes, with no small astonishment in her gaze. At this point she interrupted:

"Eurie Mitchell, what can be the matter with you? were you ever known to be so quiet? I haven't heard you speak on this theme, or any other, since you came into the room; yet you look as though you had some ideas, if you chose to advance them. Where do you stand on this card question?"

"We never play cards at home," Eurie said, quickly, "and we never go where we know they are to be played."

Flossy turned upon her the most surprised eyes. Dr. Mitchell's family was the most decidedly unconventional and free and easy of any represented there. Flossy had supposed that they, of all others, would make cards a daily pastime.

"Why not?" she asked, briefly and earnestly, as one eager to learn.

"It is on Nell's account," Eurie said, still speaking very gravely. "Nell has but one fault, and that is card-playing; he is just passionately fond of it; he is tempted everywhere. Father says Grandfather Mitchell was just so, and Nell inherits the taste. It is a great temptation to him, and we do not like to foster it at home."

"But home card-playing is so different; that isn't gambling." This from Flossy, questioningly.

"Nell learned to play at home," Eurie said, quickly. "That is, he learned at Grandfather Mitchell's when he was a little boy. We have no means of knowing whether he would have been led into gambling but for that early education. I know that Robbie shall never learn if we can help it; we never mean to allow him to go where any sort of cards are played, so long as we have him under control."

All this was utterly new to Flossy.

"Then, if your little Robbie should come, with other children, to see me, and I should teach them a game of cards to amuse them, I might be doing you a positive injury," she said, thoughtfully.

"I certainly should so consider it," Eurie said, with quickness and with feeling. "Girls, I speak vehemently on this subject always; having one serious lesson at home makes people think."

"It is a question whether we have any right to indulge in an amusement that has the power to lead people astray," Ruth said, grave and thoughtful, "especially when it is impossible to tell what boy may he growing up under that influence to whom it will become a snare."

Marion added:

"Flossy, do you begin to see?"

"I see in every direction," Flossy said. "There is no telling when we may be doing harm. But, now, let me be personal; I play with father a great deal; he is an old man, and he has no special temptation, certainly. I have heard him say he never played for anything of more value than a pin in his life. What harm can there possibly be in my spending an evening with him in such an amusement, if it rests and entertains him?"

"Imagine some of your Sunday-school boys accepting your invitation to call on you, and finding you playing a social game with your father; then imagine them quoting you in support of their game at the billiard saloon that same evening a little later," Marion said, quickly. "You see, my little Flossy, we don't live in nutshells or sealed cans; we are at all times liable to be broken in upon by people whom we may influence and whom we may harm. I confess I don't want to do anything at home that will have to be pushed out of sight in haste and confusion because some one happens to come in. I want to be honest, even in my play."

Over this Flossy looked absolutely aghast. Those boys of hers, they were getting a strong hold upon her already; she longed to lead them. Was it possible that by her very amusements she might lead them astray! Another point was, that Nellis Mitchell could never be invited to join them in a game. She had invited him often, and she winced at the thought. Did his sister think she had helped him into temptation? Following these trains of thought, she was led into another, over which she thought aloud.

"And suppose any of them should ask me if I ever played cards! I should have to say yes."

"Precisely," said Marion. "And don't you go to thinking that you can ever hide behind that foolish little explanation, 'I play simply for amusement; I think it is wrong to play for money.' It won't do: it takes logical brains to see the difference, and some even of those won't see it; but they can readily see that, having plenty of money, of course you have no temptation to play cards for it, and they see that with them it is different."



CHAPTER XII.

SETTLING QUESTIONS.

"THERE is Bible for that doctrine too."

"Where?" Flossy asked, turning quickly to Marion.

"In this verse: 'If meat maketh my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world stands.' Don't you see you never can know which brother may be made to offend?"

"And it is even about so useful a thing as food," said Flossy, looking her amazement; she had never heard that verse before in her life. "About just that thing; and nothing so really unnecessary to a complete life as card-playing may be."

"Col. Baker sneers at the inconsistency of people who have nothing to do with cards, and who play croquet," Eurie said this with cheeks a little heightened in color; she had come in contact with Col. Baker on this very question.

Ruth looked up quickly from the paper on which she was scribbling.

"I think myself," she said, "that if it should seem necessary to me to give up cards entirely, consistency would oblige me to include croquet, and all other games of that sort."

"I shouldn't feel obliged to do any such thing," Marion said, promptly; "at least, not until I had become convinced that people played croquet late into the night, in rooms smelling of tobacco and liquor, and were tempted to drink freely of the latter, and pawn their coats, if necessary, to get money enough to carry out the game. You see, there is a difference."

"Yet people can gamble in playing croquet," Eurie said, thoughtfully.

"Oh, yes, and people can gamble with pins, or in tossing up pennies. The point is, they are not in the habit of doing it; and pins suggest no such thing to people in general; neither do croquet balls; while the fact remains that the ordinary use of cards, is to gamble with them; and comparatively few of those who use them habitually confine themselves to quiet home games. People are in danger of making their brothers offend by their use; we all know that."

"If that is true, then just that one verse from the Bible ought to settle the whole question." There was no mistaking the quiet meaning in Flossy's voice; it was as good as saying that the whole question was settled for her. Marion regarded her with evident satisfaction; her manner was all the more fascinating, because she was so entirely unconscious that this way of looking at questions, rather than this firm manner of settling questions, was not common, even among Christians. "Can you show me the verse in your Bible?" she presently asked.

"I can do that same with the greatest pleasure," Marion said, bringing forward a new and shining concordance. "I really meant to have a new dress this fall; I say that, Ruthie, for your special comfort; but the truth is, there was an army of Bible verses that I learned in my youth trooping up to me, and I had such a desire to see the connection, and find out what they were all about, that I was actually obliged to sacrifice the dress and get a concordance. I have lots of comfort with it. Here is the verse, Flossy."

Flossy drew the Bible toward her with a little sigh.

"I wish I knew an army of verses," she said. "Seems to me I don't know any at all." Then she went to reading.

"I know verses enough," Eurie said, "but they seem to be in a great muddle in my brain. I can't remember that any of them were ever explained to me; and it isn't very often that I find a place where any of them will fit in."

"They do fit in, though, and with astonishing closeness, you will find, as you grow used to them. I have been amazed at that feature of the Bible. Some of the verses that occur in the selections for parsing are just wonderful; they seem aimed directly at me. What have you found, Flossy?"

"Wonderful things," said Flossy, flushing and smiling.

"You are reading backward, aren't you? I know those verses; just you let me read them, substituting the object about which we are talking, and see how they will fit. You see, girls, this astonishing man, Paul by name—do you happen to know his history?—more wonderful things happened to him than to any other mortal I verily believe. Well, he was talking about idols, and advising his Christian friends not to eat the food that had been offered to idols; not that it would hurt them, but because—well, you'll see the 'because' as I read. I'll just put in our word, for an illustration, instead of meat. 'But cards commend us not to God: for neither if we play are we the better; neither if we play not, are we the worse. But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak; for if any man see thee which hast knowledge, sit at cards, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to sit at cards also? And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died? But when ye sin so against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. Wherefore if cards make my brother to offend, I will play no more cards while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.' Doesn't that fit?"

"Let me look at that," said Eurie, suddenly, drawing the Bible to her. "After all," she said, after a moment, "what right have you to substitute the word cards? It is talking about another matter."

"Now, Eurie Mitchell, you are too bright to make such a remark as that! If the Bible is for our help as well as for Paul's, we have surely the right to substitute the noun that fits our present needs. We have no idols nowadays; at least they are not made out of wood and stone; and the logic of the question is as clear as sunlight. We have only to understand that the matter of playing cards is a snare and a danger to some people, and we see our duty clearly enough, because, how are we ever to be sure that the very person who will be tempted is not within the reach of our influence. What do you think, Flossy? Is the question any clearer to you?"

"Why, yes," Flossy said, slowly, "that eighth verse settles it: 'For meat commendeth us not to God, for neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse.' It certainly can do no one any harm if I let cards alone, and it is equally certain that it may do harm if I play them. I should think my duty was clear."

"I wonder what Col. Baker will say to that duty?" queried Eurie, thinking aloud rather than speaking to any one. "He is very much given over to the amusement, if I am not mistaken."

Flossy raised her eyes and fixed them thoughtfully on Eurie's face, while a flush spread all over her own pretty one. Was it possible that she had helped to foster this taste in Col. Baker. How many evenings she had spent with him in this way. Was he very much addicted to the use of cards, she wondered; that is, outside of their own parlor? Eurie seemed to know something about it.

"What makes you think so?" she asked, at last.

"Because I know so. He has a great deal to do with Nell's infatuation. He was the very first one with whom Nell ever played for anything but fun. Flossy Shipley, you surely know that he derives a good deal of his income in that way?"

"I certainly did not know it," Flossy said, with an increasing glow on her cheeks. The glow was caused by wondering how far her own brother, Charlie, had been led by this man.

"Girls," said Marion, concluding that a change of subject would be wise, "wouldn't a Bible reading evening be nice?"

"What kind of an evening can that be?"

Marion laughed.

"Why, a reading together out of the Bible about a certain subject, or subjects, that interested us, and about which we wanted to inform ourselves? Like this, for instance. I presume there are dozens of texts that bear on this very question. It would be nice to go over them together and talk them up."

Flossy's eyes brightened.

"I would like that exceedingly," she said. "I need the help of you all. I know so very little about the Bible. We have musical evenings, and literary evenings; why not Bible evenings? Let's do it."

"Apropos of the subject in hand, before we take up a new one, what do you think of this by way of illustration?" Ruth asked, as she threw down on the table a daintily written epistle. There was an eager grasping after it by this merry trio, and Eurie securing it, read aloud. It was an invitation for the next evening to a select gathering of choice spirits for the purpose of enjoying a social evening at cards.

"What do you propose to do with it?" Marion asked, as Eurie balanced the note on her hand with an amused face; the illustration fitted so remarkably into the talk.

"Decline it," Ruth said, briefly. And then added, as an after-thought, "I never gave the subject any attention in my life. I am, perhaps, not entirely convinced now, only I see as Flossy does, that I shall certainly do no harm by declining; whereas it seems I may possibly do some by accepting; therefore, of course, the way is clear."

She said it with the utmost composure, and it was evident that the idea of such a course being disagreeable to her, or of her considering it a cross to decline, had not occurred to her. She cared nothing at all about these matters, and had only been involved in them as a sort of necessity belonging to society. She was more than willing to be "counted out."

As for Flossy, she drew a little sigh of envy. She would have given much to have been constituted like Ruth Erskine. She knew that the same like invitation would probably come to her, and she knew that she would decline it; but, aside from loss of the pleasure and excitement of the pretty toilet and the pleasant evening among her friends, she foresaw long and wearisome discussions with Col. Baker, with Charlie, with her father; sarcastic remarks from Kitty and her lover, and a long train of annoyances. She dreaded them all; it was so easy to slip along with the current; it was so hard to stem it and insist on going the other way.

As for Marion Wilbur, she envied them both; a chance for them to dash out into a new channel and make some headway, not the everlasting humdrum sameness that filled her life.

Flossy was fascinated with the Bible words, that were so new and fresh to her.

"Those verses cover a great deal of ground," she said, slowly reading them over again. "I can think of a good many things which we call right enough, that, measured by that test, would have to be changed or given up. But, Marion, you spoke of dancing and theatre-going. I can't quite see what the verses have to do with either of those amusements; I mean not as we, and the people in our set, have to do with such things. Do you think every form of dancing is wicked?"

"What wholesale questions you ask, my morsel! And you ask them precisely as though I had been made umpire and you must abide by my decisions, whatever they are. Now, do you know I never believed in dancing? I had some queer, perhaps old-fashioned, notions about it all my life. Even before there was any such thing as a conscientious scruple about it, I should not have danced if I had had a hundred chances to mingle in just the set that you do; so, perhaps, I am not the one of whom to ask that question."

"I should think you were just the one. If you have examined it, and know why you think so, you can surely tell me, and give me a chance to see whether I ought to think as you do or not."

"I need posting, decidedly, on that question," Eurie said, throwing off her earnestness and looking amused. "If there is anyone thing above another that I do thoroughly enjoy, it is dancing; and I give you all fair warning, I don't mean to be coaxed out of it very easily. I shall fight hard for that bit of fun. Marion don't know anything about it, for she never danced; but the rest of you know just what a delicious exercise it is; and I don't believe, when it is indulged in reasonably, and at proper places, there is any harm at all in it. If I am to give it up, you will have to show me strong reasons why I should."

"All this fits right in with my idea," Marion said. "Nothing could be more suitable for our first Bible reading. Let us take an evening for it, and prepare ourselves as well as we can beforehand, and examine into the Bible view of it. Eurie, you will be expected to be armed with all the Scriptural arguments in its favor. I'll try for the other side. Now, Ruth and Flossy, which side will you choose?"

"Neither," Ruth said, promptly. "I am interested in the subject, and shall be glad to be informed as to what the Bible says about it, if any of you are smart enough to find anything that will bear on the subject; but I believe the Bible left that, as well as some other things, to our common sense, and that each of us have to decide the matter for ourselves."

"All right," said Marion, "we'll accept you on the non-committal side. Only, remember you are to try to prove from the Bible that it has left us to decide this matter for ourselves."

"I shall take every side that I find," Flossy said. "What I want to know is, the truth about things."

"Without regard as to whether the truth is so fortunate as to agree with your opinion or not?" said Marion. "You will, probably, be quite as likely to find the truth as any of us. Well, I like the plan; there is work in it, and it will amount to something. When shall it be?"

"Next Friday," said Flossy.

"No," said Ruth; "Friday is the night of Mrs. Garland's lawn party."

"A dancing party," said Eurie. "Good! Let us come together on Thursday evening. If there is a dancing party just ahead, it will make us all the more zealous to prove our sides; I shall be, at least, for I want to go to Mrs. Garland's."



CHAPTER XIII.

LOOKING FOR WORK.

DR. DENNIS had just gone into his study to make ready for the evening prayer-meeting, when he heard his door-bell ring. He remembered with a shade of anxiety that his daughter was not yet out of school, and that his sister and housekeeper was not at home. It was more than likely that he would be interrupted.

"What is it, Hannah?" he asked, as that person appeared at his door.

"It is Miss Erskine, sir. I told her that Miss Dennis was out of town, and Miss Grace was at school, and she said it was of no consequence, she wanted to see the minister himself. Will I tell her that you are engaged?"

"No," said Dr. Dennis, promptly. The sensation was still very new, this desire on the part of any of the name of Erskine to see him. His preparation could afford to wait.

Two minutes more and Ruth was in the study. It was a place in which she felt as nearly embarrassed as she ever approached to that feeling. She had a specific purpose in calling, and words arranged wherewith to commence her topic; but they fled from her as if she had been a school girl instead of a finished young lady in society; and she answered the Doctor's kind enquiries as to the health of her father and herself in an absent and constrained manner. At last this good man concluded to help her.

"Is there any thing special that I can do for you to-day?" he asked, with a kindly interest in his tone, that suggested the feeling that he was interested in her plans, whatever they were, and would be glad to help.

"Yes," she said, surprised into frankness by his straightforward way of doing things; "or, at least, I hope you can. Dr. Dennis, ought not every Christian to be at work?"

"Our great Example said; 'I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day.'"

"I know it; that very verse set me to thinking about it. That is what I want help about. There is no work for me to do; at least, I can't find any. I am doing just nothing at all, and I don't in the least know which way to turn. I am not satisfied with this state of things; I can't settle back to my books and my music as I did before I went away; I don't enjoy them as I used to; I mean, they don't absorb me; they seem to be of no earthly use to anyone but myself, and I don't feel absolutely certain that they are of any use to me; anyway, they are not Christian work."

"As to that, you are not to be too certain about it. Wonderful things can be done with music; and when one is given a marked talent for it, as I hear has been the case with you, it is not to be hidden in a napkin."

"I don't know what I can do with music, I am sure," Ruth said, skeptically. "I suppose I must have a good deal of talent in that direction; I have been told so ever since I can remember; but beyond entertaining my friends, I see no other special use for it."

"Do you remember telling me about the songs which Mr. Bliss sang at Chautauqua, and the effect on the audience?"

"Yes," said Ruth, speaking heartily, and her cheeks glowing at the recollection "but he was wonderful!"

"The same work can be done in a smaller way," Dr. Dennis said, smiling. "I hope to show you something of what you may do to help in that way before another winter passes; but, in the meantime, mere entertainment of friends is not a bad motive for keeping up one's music. Then there is the uncertain future ever before us. What if you should be called upon to teach music some day?"

A vision of herself toiling wearily from house to house in all weathers, and at all hours of the day, as she had seen music teachers do, hovered over Ruth Erskine's brain, and so utterly improbable and absurd did the picture seem, when she imagined it as having any reference to her, that she laughed outright.

"I don't believe I shall ever teach music," she said, positively.

"Perhaps not; and yet stranger things than that have happened in this changeful life."

"But, Dr. Dennis," she said, with sudden energy, and showing a touch of annoyance at the turn which the talk was taking, "my trouble is not an inability to employ my time; I do not belong to the class of young ladies who are afflicted with ennui." And a sarcastic curve of her handsome lip made Ruth look very like the Miss Erskine that Dr. Dennis had always known. She despised people who had no resources within themselves. "I can find plenty to do, and I enjoy doing it; but the point is, I seem to be living only for myself, and that doesn't seem right. I want Christian work."

To tell the truth Dr. Dennis was puzzled. There was so much work to do, his hands and heart were always so full and running over, that it seemed strange to him for anyone to come looking for Christian work; the world was teeming with it.

On the other hand he confessed to himself that he was utterly unaccustomed to hearing people ask for work; or, if the facts be told, to having any one do any work.

Years ago he had tried to set the people of the First Church to work; but they had stared at him and misunderstood him, and he confessed to himself that he had given over trying to get work out of most of them. While this experience was refreshing, it was new, and left him for the moment bewildered.

"I understand you," he said, rallying. "There is plenty of Christian work. Do you want to take a class in the Sunday-school? There is a vacancy."

Ruth shook her head with decision.

"That is not at all my forte. I have no faculty for teaching children; I am entirely unused to them, and have no special interest in them, and no sort of idea how they are to be managed. Some people are specially fitted for such work; I know I am not."

"Often we find our work much nearer home than we had planned," Dr. Dennis said, regarding her with a thoughtful air. "How is it with your father, Miss Erskine?"

"My father?" she repeated; and she could hardly have looked more bewildered if her pastor had asked after the welfare of the man in the moon.

"Are you trying to win him over to the Lord's side?"

Utter silence and surprise on Miss Erskine's part. At last she said:

"I hardly ever see my father; we are never alone except when we are on our way to dinner, or to pay formal calls on very formal people. Then we are always in a hurry. I cannot reach my father, Dr. Dennis; he is immersed in business, and has no time nor heart for such matters. I should not in the least know how to approach him if I had a chance; and, indeed, I am sure I could do no good, for he would esteem it an impertinence to be questioned by his daughter as to his thoughts on these matters."

"Yet you have an earnest desire to see him a Christian?"

"Yes," she said, speaking slowly and hesitatingly; "of course I have that. To be very frank, Dr. Dennis, it is a hopeless sort of desire; I don't expect it in the least; my father is peculiarly unapproachable; I know he considers himself sufficient unto himself, if you will allow the expression. In thinking of him, I have felt that a great many years from now, when he is old, and when business cares and responsibilities have in a measure fallen off, and given him time to think of himself, he might then feel his need of a Friend and be won; but I don't even hope for it before that time."

"My dear friend, you have really no right to set a different time from the one that your Master has set," her pastor said, earnestly. "Don't you know that his time is always now? How can you be sure that he will choose to give your father a long life, and leisure in old age to help him to think? Isn't that a terrible risk?"

Ruth Erskine shook her decided head.

"I feel sure that my work is not in that direction," she said. "I could not do it; you do not know my father as well as I do; he would never allow me to approach him. The most I can hope to do will be to hold what he calls my new views so far into the background that he will not positively forbid them to me. He is the only person I think of whom I stand absolutely in awe. Then I couldn't talk with him. His life is a pure, spotless one, convincing by its very morality; so he thinks that there is no need of a Saviour. I do pray for him; I mean to as long as he and I live; but I know I can do nothing else; at least not for many a year."

How was Dr. Dennis to set to work a lady who knew so much that she could not work? This was the thought that puzzled him. But he knew how difficult it was for people to work in channels marked out by others. So he said, encouragingly:

"I can conceive of some of your difficulties in that direction. But you have other friends who are not Christians?"

This being said inquiringly, Ruth, after a moment of hesitation, answered it:

"I have one friend to whom I have tried to talk about this matter, but I have had no success. He is very peculiar in his views and feelings. He agrees to every thing that I say, and admits the wisdom and reasonableness of it all, but he goes no further."

"There are a great many such people," Dr. Dennis said, with a quick sigh. He met many of them himself. "They are the hardest class to reach. Does your friend believe in the power of prayer? I have generally found the safest and shortest way with such to be to use my influence in inducing them to begin to pray. If they admit its power and its reasonableness, it is such a very simple thing to do for a friend that they can hardly refuse."

"I don't think he ever prays," Ruth said, "and I don't believe he would. He would think it hypocritical. He says as much as that half the praying must be mockery."

"Granting that to be the case, does he think he should therefore not offer real prayer? That would be a sad state. Because I have many hypocrites in my family whose words to me are mockery, therefore no one must be a true friend."

"I know," said Ruth, interrupting. "But I don't know how to reach such people. Perhaps he may be your work, Dr. Dennis, but I don't think he is mine. I don't in the least know what to say to him. I refer to Mr. Wayne."

"I know him," Dr. Dennis said, "but he is not inclined to talk with me. I have not the intimacy with him that would lead him to be familiar. I should be very certain, if I were you, that my work did not lie in that direction before I turned from it."

"I am certain," Ruth said, with a little laugh.

"I don't know how to talk to such people. I should feel sure of doing more harm than good."

"But, my dear Miss Erskine, I beg your pardon for the reminder, but since you are thrown much into his society, will it not be necessary for you, as a Christian, to talk more or less about this matter? Should not your talk be shaped in such a way as to influence him if you can?"

"I don't think I understand," Ruth said, doubtfully. "Do you mean that people should talk about religion all the time they are together?"

During this question Dr. Dennis had drawn his Bible toward him and been turning over the leaves.

"Just let me read you a word from the Guide-book on this subject: 'Only let your conversation be as becometh the Gospel of Christ.' 'As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation.' 'Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of person ought ye to be, in all holy conversation and godliness?' What should you conclude as to Christian duty in the matter of daily conversation?"

Ruth made no answer to this question, but sat with earnest, thoughtful look fixed on her pastor's face.

"Who follows that pattern?" she asked, at last.

"My dear friend, is not our concern rather to decide whether you and I shall try to do it in the future?"

Someway this brought the talk to a sudden lull. Ruth seemed to have no more to say.

"There is another way of work that I have been intending to suggest to some of you young ladies," Dr. Dennis said, after a thoughtful silence. "It is something very much neglected in our church—that is the social question. Do you know we have many members who complain that they are never called on, never spoken with, never noticed in any way?"

"I don't know anything about the members," Ruth said. "I don't think I have a personal acquaintance with twenty of them—a calling acquaintance, I mean."

"That is the case with a great many, and it is a state of things that should not exist. The family ought to know each other. I begin to see your work clearer; it is the young ladies, to a large extent, who must remedy this evil. Suppose you take up some of that work, not neglecting the other, of course. 'These ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone,' I am afraid will be said to a good many of us. But this is certainly work needing to be done, and work for which you have leisure."

He hoped to see her face brighten, but it did not. Instead she said:

"I hate calling."

"I dare say; calling that is aimless, and in a sense useless. It must be hateful work. But if you start out with an object in view, a something to accomplish that is worth your while, will it not make a great difference?"

Ruth only sighed.

"I have so many calls to make with father," she said, wearily. "It is the worst work I do. They are upon fashionable, frivolous people, who cannot talk about anything. It is worse martyrdom now than it used to be. I think I am peculiarly unfitted for such work, Dr. Dennis."

"But I want you to try a different style of calls. Go alone; not with your father, or with anyone who will trammel your tongue; and go among a class of people who do not expect you, and will be surprised and pleased, and helped, perhaps. Come, let me give you a list of persons whom I would like to have you call on at your earliest opportunity. This is work that I am really longing to see done."

A prisoner about to receive sentence could hardly have looked more gloomy than did Ruth. She was still for a few minutes, then she said:

"Dr. Dennis, do you really think it is a person's duty to do that sort of work for which he or she feels least qualified, and which is the most distasteful?"

"No," said Dr. Dennis, promptly. "My dear Miss Erskine, will you be so kind as to tell me the work for which you feel qualified, and for which you have no distaste?"

Again Ruth hesitated, looked confused, and then laughed. She began to see that she was making a very difficult task for her pastor.

"I don't feel qualified for anything," she said, at last. "And I feel afraid to undertake anything. But at the same time, I think I ought to be at work."

"Now we begin to see the way clearer," he said, smiling, and with encouragement in his voice. "It may seem a strange thing to you, but a sense of unfitness is sometimes one of the very best qualifications for such work. If it is strong enough to drive us to the blessed Friend who has promised to make perfect our weakness in this as in all other efforts, and if we go out armed in His strength we are sure to conquer. Try it. Take this for your motto: 'As ye have opportunity.' And, by the way, do you know the rest of that verse? 'Especially to them who are of the household of faith.' It is members of the household that I want you to call on, remember."

Ruth laughed again, and shook her head. But she took her list and went away. She had no more that she wanted to say just then; but she felt that she had food for thought.

"I may try it," she said, as she went out, holding up her list, "but I feel that I shall blunder, and do more harm than good."

Dr. Dennis looked after her with a face on which there was no smile. "There goes one," he said to himself, "who thinks she is willing to be led, but, on the contrary, she wants to lead. She is saved, but not subdued. I wonder what means the great Master will have to use to lead her to rest in his hands, knowing no way but his?"



CHAPTER XIV

AN UNARMED SOLDIER.

MANY things intervened to keep Ruth Erskine from having much to do with that list which her pastor had given her. She read it over indeed, and realized that she was not familiar with a single name.

"What an idea it will be for me to go blundering through the city, hunting up people whom I shall not know when I find."

This she said as she read it over; then she laid it aside, and made ready to go out to dinner with her father, to meet two judges and their wives and daughters who were stopping in town.

During that day she thought many times of the sentences that had been read to her out of that plain-looking, much-worn Bible on Dr. Dennis' study-table. The only effect they had on her was to make her smile at the thought of the impossibility of anything like a religious conversation in such society as that!

"How they would stare," she said to herself, "if I should ask them about a prayer-meeting! I have half a mind to try it. If father were not within hearing I would, just to see what these finished young ladies would say."

But she did not try it; and the evening passed, as so many evenings had, without an attempt on her part to carry out any of the thoughts which troubled her. She looked forward to one bit of work which she expected to fall to her share, at least she liked to call it work.

That card-party to which she had been invited; she would be expected to attend in company with Mr. Wayne; she meant to decline, and her father would be surprised and a trifle annoyed, for it was at a place where, not liking the people well enough himself to be social, he desired his daughter to atone for his deficiency. But she would steadily refuse. She did not shrink from this effort as Flossy did; on the contrary, she half enjoyed the thought of being a calm and composed martyr.

But, quite to her discomfort, the martyrdom was not permitted; at least it took a different form. Mr. Wayne was obliged to be out of town, and sent profuse regrets, assuming that, of course, it would be a sore disappointment to her.

Her father took sufficient notice of it to make one or two efforts to agreeably supply his place, and failing in that, assured his daughter that rather than have her disappointed, he would have planned to accompany her himself if he had known of Mr. Wayne's absence in time. The actual cross that it would have been to explain to her father that she did not desire to go, and the reasons therefor, she did not take up; but the occurrence served to annoy her.

Two days afterward she was busy all the morning with her dressmaker, getting a special dress ready for a wedding among the upper circles. She had been hurried and worried, and was as nearly out of patience as her calmness ever allowed her to be. Still she remembered that it was the prayer-meeting evening, that she should see Dr. Dennis, and that he would be likely to ask her about the people on that list. She ought to go that afternoon, and try what she could do.

Once since her call on Dr. Dennis she had met him as he was going down Clinton Street, and he had turned and joined her for a few steps, while he said:

"I have been thinking about another friend of yours, that I should be very glad to see influenced in the right direction. His sister is trying, I presume; but other people's sisters some times have an influence. Young Mitchell, the doctor's son, is a young man of real promise; he ought to be on the Lord's side."

"You are mistaken in supposing him to be a friend of mine," Ruth said, with promptness and emphasis. "We have the most distant speaking acquaintance only, and I have a dislike for him amounting to absolute aversion." There was that in Ruth Erskine's voice when she chose to let it appear that said, "My aversion is a very serious and disagreeable thing."

"Yes," the Doctor said, quietly, as one in no degree surprised or disturbed; "yet he has a soul to be saved, and the Lord Jesus Christ died to save him."

There was no denying this; and certainly it would not look well in her to say that she had no desire to have part in his salvation; so she kept silence. But there followed her a disagreeable remembrance of having negatived every proposition whereby the doctor had hoped to set her at work. She decided, disagreeable as it was, to make a vigorous assault on those families, thereby showing him what she could do.

To this end she arrayed herself in immaculate calling attire—with a rustle of silk and a softness of ruffle, and a daintiness of glove that none but the wealthy can assume, and, in short, with that unmistakable air about every thing pertaining to her that marks the lady of fashion. These things were as much a part of Ruth Erskine as her hair and eyes were. Once ready, her dress, perhaps, gave her as little thought as her eyes or hair did. But she looked as though that must have been the sole object of thought and study in order to produce such perfect results.

Her preparation for her new and untried work had been none of the best. As I said, the morning had been given to the cares of the dressmaker and the deceitfulness of trimmings, so much so that her Bible reading even had been omitted, and only the briefest and most hurried of prayers, worthy of the days when prayer was nothing to her but a formal bowing of the head, on proper occasions, had marked her need of help from the Almighty Hand. These thoughts troubled her as she went down the Street. She paused irresolutely before one of the principal bookstores.

"I ought to have some tracts," she said, doubtfully, to herself; "they always take tracts when they go district visiting; I know that from hearing Mrs. Whipple talk; what is this but a district visiting; only Dr. Dennis has put my district all over the city; I wonder if he could have scattered the streets more if he had tried; respectable streets, though, all of them; better than any Mrs. Whipple ever told about."

Then she tried to select her tracts; but when one has utter ignorance of such literature, and a few minutes at a crowded counter in which to make a selection, it is not likely to be very select. She finally gave up any attempt at choice, beyond a few whose titles seemed inviting, chose a package at random, and hastened on her way.

"Mrs. C. Y. Sullivan" was the first name on her list, and, following her directions, she came presently to the street and number. A neat brick house, with a modern air about it and its surroundings; a bird singing in a cage before the open window, and pots of flowers blooming behind tastefully looped white curtains; not at all the sort of a house that Ruth had imagined she would see.

It did not suit her ideas of district visiting, crude though those ideas were. However, she rang the bell. Having commenced the task she was not one to draw back, though she admitted to herself that she never felt more embarrassed in her life. Nor did the embarrassment lessen when she was shown into the pretty, tasteful parlor, where presently Mrs. Sullivan joined her.

"I am Miss Erskine," Ruth said, rising as Mrs. Sullivan, a tall woman of some degree of dignity after a slight bow, waited as if she would know her errand. Unfortunately Ruth had no errand, save that she had come out to do her duty, and make the sort of call that Dr. Dennis expected her to make. Her embarrassment was excessive! What could she do or say next? Why did not Mrs. Sullivan take a chair, instead of standing there and looking at her like an idiot?

"Do you get out to church every Sabbath?" she asked, suddenly, feeling the need of saying something.

Mrs. Sullivan looked as though she thought she had suddenly come in contact with a lunatic.

"Do I get out to church?" she repeated. "That depends on whether I decide to go or not. May I ask why you are interested?"

What had become of Ruth's common sense? Why couldn't she have said, in as natural a way as she would have talked about going to a concert, that she was interested to know whether she enjoyed such a privilege? Why couldn't she have been herself in talking about these matters, as well as at any other time? Does anyone know why such a sense of horrible embarrassment creeps over some people when their conversation takes the least tinge of religion—people who are wonderfully self-possessed on all other themes?

"Well," said Ruth, in haste and confusion, "I merely inquired; I mean no offence, certainly; will you have a tract?" And she hastily seized one from her package, which happened to be entitled, "Why are you not a Christian?"

"Thank you," Mrs. Sullivan said, drawing back, "I am not in special need of reading matter; we keep ourselves supplied with religious literature of a kind that suits our tastes. As to tracts, I always keep a package by me to distribute when I go among the poor. This one would not be particularly appropriate to me, as I trust I am a Christian."

Dear me! how stiff and proper they both were! And in their hearts how indignant they both felt. What about? Could either of them have told?

"I wonder what earthly good that call did?" Ruth asked herself, as with glowing cheeks and rapid steps, she made her way down the street. "What could have been Dr. Dennis' object in sending me there to call? I thought I was to call on the poor. He didn't say any thing about whether they were poor or not, now I think of it; but I supposed, of course, that was what he meant. Why need she have been so disagreeable, anyway? I am sure I didn't insult her."

And I tell you truly that Miss Erskine did not know that she had seemed disagreeable in the extreme to Mrs. Sullivan, and that she was at that moment raging over it in her heart.

Extremely disgusted with her first attempt, and almost ready to declare that it should be the last, Ruth still decided to make one more venture—that inborn dislike which she had for giving up what had once been undertaken, coming to her aid in this matter.

Another pretty little house, white and green blinds, and plant in bloom; the name on the door and on her list was "Smith." That told her very little. She was ushered into what was evidently the family sitting-room, and a pretty enough room it was; occupied just now by three merry girls, who hushed their laugh as she entered, and by a matronly lady, whom one of them called "mother."

Ruth had never made calls before when she had the least tinge of embarrassment. If she could have divested herself of the idea that she was a district visitor out distributing tracts, she would not have felt so now; but as it was, the feeling grew upon her every instant. Pretty little Miss Smith had decidedly the advantage of her, as she said, promptly:

"Good afternoon, Miss Erskine; mother, this is Judge Erskine's daughter;" and then proceeded to introduce her friends.

Now, if Ruth could have become unprofessional, all might have been well; but she had gone out with a sincere desire to do her duty; so she took the offered seat near Mrs. Smith, and said:

"I called this afternoon, at Dr. Dennis' request, to see if there was anything that I could do for you."

Mrs. Smith looked politely amazed.

"I don't think I quite understand," she said, slowly; while in the daughter's bright eyes there gleamed mirth and mischief.

"I do," she said, quickly. "Dr. Dennis is very kind. Miss Erskine, I am very anxious to have a blue silk dress, trimmed in white lace, to wear to the party next week; could you manage it for me, do you think?"

"Caroline!" spoke Mrs. Smith, in a surprised and reproving tone, while Ruth looked her indignant astonishment.

"Well, mother, she said she called to see if we wanted anything, and I certainly want that."

"There is some mistake," Mrs. Smith said, speaking kindly, and evidently pitying Ruth's dreadful embarrassment. "You have mistaken the house, I presume; our name is such a common one. You are out on an errand of charity, I presume? We are glad to see you, of course, but we are not in need of anything but friends. I believe you attend the same church with ourselves; we ought to know each other, of course. So we shall profit by the mistake after all. My daughter is a wild little girl, and lets her sense of fun get the better of her politeness sometimes; I hope you will excuse her."

What was to be said? Why could not Ruth get rid of her horrible embarrassment and rally to meet this kind and frank greeting? In vain she tried to command her tongue; to think of something to say that would be proper under these strange circumstances. How had she misunderstood Dr. Dennis! Why should these people be called on? Why should they feel that they were being neglected when they were in need of nothing?

It was all a mystery to her; and the world is full of people who do not understand a sense of loneliness, whose lives are so full of friendships, and engagements, and society, that they imagine all other people are like themselves except that class known as the poor, who need old clothes, and cold pieces, and tracts!

That was all that Ruth Erskine knew. She could not recover from her astonishment and confusion; she made her stay very short, indeed, apologizing in what she was conscious was an awkward way for her intrusion, and then went directly toward home, resolving in great firmness that she had made her last calls on people selected from that horrible list.

She was more than embarrassed; she was utterly dismayed and disheartened. Was there, then, nothing for her to do? It had been a real honest desire to be up and doing which had sent her to Dr. Dennis; it had been a real cross, and one keenly felt to take up this work about which she had started. What an utter failure! What could he have meant? How was she expected to help those people? They needed nothing; they were Christian people; they were pleasantly circumstanced in every way. She had not the least idea how to be of any help to them. There was nothing for her to do. She felt humbled and sad.

Yet that young lady was joined in a few minutes by Nellis Mitchell, who cordially volunteered to shield her dainty summer toilet from certain drops of rain that began to fall, and so walked six entire blocks by her side, pleasant and genial as usual, and not a word said she to him about the great topic to which her life was consecrated. He even helped her by himself referring to the evening meeting, and saying that he should have to escort Eurie as far as the door if this rain continued, and she did not so much as think to ask him to come farther and enjoy the meeting with them. She did not like Nellis Mitchell, you will remember.

Also that same evening she spent an hour after prayer-meeting in conversation with her friend, Mr. Wayne, and she said not a single word to him about this matter. She could not talk with him, she told herself; he did not understand her, and it did no good. Some time, when he was in a less complaisant mood, she could do something for him, but not now. She was not very companionable, however; her mind was dwelling on her afternoon disappointment.

"It was the most horrid time I ever had in my life!" she told Marion, after going over an account of the experience. "I shall not be caught in that way again."

And Marion, unsympathetic girl that she was, laughed much and long.

"What a creature you are!" she said, at last. "I declare, it is funny that people can live in the world and know so little about their fellow-mortals as you and Flossy do. She knows no more about them than a kitten does, and you know no more than the moon. You sail right above all their feelings and ideas. It served you right, I declare. What earthly right had you to go sailing down on people in that majestic fashion, and asking questions as if they were Roman Catholics and you were the priest?"

"I don't see what in the world you mean!" Ruth said, feeling exceedingly annoyed.

"Well, my dear young woman, you ought to see; you can't expect to get through the Christian world even without having a due regard for common sense. Just suppose the President's wife should come sweeping into your parlor, asking you if you went to church, and if you would have a tract. I am afraid you would be tempted to tell her it was none of her business."

"The cases are not at all parallel," Ruth said, flushing deeply. "I consider myself on quite an equal footing with the President's wife or any other lady."

Whereupon Marion laughed with more abandon than before.

"Now, Ruth Erskine," she said, "don't be a goose. Do use your common sense; you have some, I am sure. Wherein are these people whom you went to see on a lower footing than yourself? Granting that they have less money than you do, or even, perhaps, less than I have, are you ready to admit that money is the question that settles positions in society?"



CHAPTER XV.

MARION'S PLAN.

"MISS WILBUR! Miss Wilbur! can't we go in Miss Lily's class to-day, our teacher isn't here?"

"Miss Wilbur, they are crowding us off the seat; there isn't room for no more in this class."

"Miss Wilbur, sister Nellie can't come to-day; she has the toothache. Can I go in Kitty's class?"

Every one of these little voices spoke at once; two of the owners thereof twitched at her dress, and another of them nudged her elbow. In the midst of this little babel of confusion the door opened softly, and Dr. Dennis came in. Marion turned toward him and laughed—a perplexed laugh that might mean something besides amusement.

"What is it?" he asked, answering the look instead of the laugh.

"It is everything," she said, quickly. "You mustn't stay a minute, Dr. Dennis; we are not in company trim to-day at all. Unless you will do the work, we can't have you."

"I came to hear, not to work," he said, smiling, and at the same time looking troubled.

"You will hear very little that will interest you for the next ten minutes at least; though I don't know but you would better stay; it would be a good introduction to the talk that I want to have with you early in the week. I am coming to-morrow after school, if I may."

Dr. Dennis gave the assent promptly, named the hour that he would be at leisure, and went away wondering what they were accomplishing in the primary class.

This was the introduction to Marion's talk in the study with Dr. Dennis. She wasted no time in preliminaries, but had hardly seated herself before the subject on her mind was brought forward.

"It is all about that class, Dr. Dennis. I am going to prove a failure."

"Don't," he said, smiling at her words, but looking his disturbance; "we have had failures enough in that class to shipwreck it; it is quite time we had a change for the better. What is the trouble?"

"The trouble is, we do nothing. Two-thirds of our time is occupied in getting ready to do; and even then we can't half accomplish it. Then we don't stay ready, and have to begin the work all over again. Yesterday, for instance, there were three absences among the teachers; that means confusion, for each of those teachers have seven children who are thus thrown loose on the world. Think how much time we must consume in getting them seated somewhere, and under some one's care; and then imagine, if you can, the amount of time that they consume in saying, 'Our teacher doesn't do so, she does so.'"

"What is the reason that the teachers in that room are so very irregular?"

"Why, they are not irregular; that is as Sunday-school teachers rate regularity. To be sure, it would never do to be teaching a graded school, for instance, and be as careless as some of them are about regularity. But that is a different matter, of course; this is only a Sunday-school! But for all that, I think they do as well as the average. You see, Dr. Dennis, there are twenty of them, and if each one of them is present every Sunday in the year save three, that makes a good deal of regularity on their part, and yet averages absences every Sabbath to be looked after. Don't you see?"

"I see," he said, smiling; "that is a mathematical way of putting it. There is reason in it, too. How in the world do you manage when there are vacancies?"

"Which is always," Marion said, quickly. "There has not been a Sabbath since I have had charge when all the teachers were present; and I have taken pains to inquire of the former superintendent, who reports very much the same. Isn't it so in all schools, Dr. Dennis?"

"Of course there must of necessity be some detentions; but not so many, probably, as there actually are, if we were in the habit of being very conscientious about these matters; still, I don't know that we are worse than others. But you haven't told me how you manage?"

"I manage every way; there is no set way to do it. I stand around in much the same state of perplexity in which you found me yesterday. The children each have their special friends who have been put in other classes, and they are on the qui vive to be with them, which adds not a little to the general confusion. Sometimes we have a regular whirl about of seats, enlarge two or three classes, and crowd some seats most uncomfortably, leaving others empty; sometimes we go out to the Bible-classes for volunteers—and, by the way, it is nearly impossible to find any. I wish you would preach a sermon on that subject. It is so easy to say, 'Oh, please excuse me;' it requires so little courage to do it; and is such a comfortable and unanswerable way of disposing of the whole matter. At the same time there is some degree of excuse for the refusals. Think of the folly of setting a young girl who knows nothing about little children, and has made no preparation to teach them, beside half a dozen little restless mortals, and bidding her interest them in the lesson for ten minutes. She doesn't know how to interest them, and she knows she doesn't, and the fact embarrasses her. Before she has fairly found out what she is expected to do her time is gone; for it takes a wonderful amount of time to get ready to work."

"But these young girls have only to teach certain Scripture verses, and a prayer or a hymn, or something of that sort have they not? One would think they might be equal to that without preparation."

"Do you think so?" Marion asked, a gleam of fun in her keen eyes. "I should like to see you try it, provided you have no better mental caliber to assist you than some of the volunteers have. Why, there is a right and wrong way of teaching even a Bible verse. Do you know, sir, that you may repeat over words to children like a list from a spelling lesson, and they will get no more idea from it than if it were a French sentence, and will be able to commit it about as readily? If I had children, I should rebel at their being taught even Bible verses by novices. Why, it isn't allowed in public schools. The days have gone by when anybody is supposed to be smart enough to teach children to drawl through the alphabet. We have the best of trained teachers even for that work, why should the Sunday-school not need them even more, infinitely more?

"Now that reminds me of a difficulty which is present even when the teachers are all there. They are not the right sort of teachers, many of them; they do just such work as would not be tolerated on week-days by any board of trustees; they whisper to each other; sometimes about the music which they are practicing, sometimes about the party that is to come off to-morrow. These are the exceptions, I know; but there are such exceptions in our school, and human nature is much the same the world over. I presume they are everywhere; at any rate, we have to deal just now with our school, and I know they are there.

"Dr. Dennis, there are at least seven of those twenty teachers in my room who ought to be in good, solid, earnest working Bible classes, getting faith for help every Sunday; getting ideas that shall make them of use in the world, instead of frittering their time away on what at best, seems to them but a very mechanical work, teaching some little children to repeat the Twenty-third Psalm, or to say the Lord's Prayer. The very fact that they do not recognize the dignity of such work unfits them for it; and the fact that they have no lesson to teach, I mean no lesson which they have to prepare carefully, excuses them from any attempt at Bible study."

"I believe you would make an excellent lecturer, if you were to take the field on a subject that interested you." This was Dr. Dennis' most irrelevant answer to Marion's eager words. She was not to be thrown off her theme.

"Then I shall try it, perhaps, on this very subject, for it certainly interests me wonderfully. Indeed, I am practicing now, with you for my audience."

"Don't think I am not interested, for I am," he said, returning to gravity and anxiety on the instant. "I see the subject to be full of perplexities; the class has seemed a bewildering one; the idea of putting the babies away alone in their own room fitted up for the purpose, and feeding them with milk until they are old enough to bear strong meat, has been something of a hobby with me. I like it theoretically, but I confess to you that I have never been able to enjoy its practical workings in our school."

"I don't wonder," Marion said, with energy. "It works most distressingly. I am coming to the very pith of my lecture now, which is this: I have been teaching school for more than seven years. I have taught all sorts and sizes of pupils. I had a fancy that I could manage almost anything in that line, believing that I had been through experiences varied enough to serve me in whatever line I could need, but I have found myself mistaken; I have found a work now that I can't accomplish. Mind you, I don't say that no one can do it; I am not quite so egotistic as that. If I do lecture, I have only to say that my teaching in that room is a failure, I can't do it, and I mean to give it up."

"Don't," Dr. Dennis said, nervously. "You will be the third one in a year's time."

"I don't wonder. I wonder that they are alive."

"But, Miss Wilbur, you are a dark and gloomy lecturer. When you demolish air castles, have you nothing to build up in their places? Would you send the babies back into the main room again, to be worn out with quiet and lack of motion?"

"Not a bit of it. I like the baby-room plan as well as any mortal; and I have a remedy which it seems to me would arrange the whole thing. Of course it seems so to me; we always like our own ways. The truth is, Dr. Dennis, I like nurseries, and think they ought to be maintained; but I don't like the idea of too many mothers there."

"Just what, in plain English, would you do, my friend, if you were commander-in-chief of the whole matter, and all we had to do was to obey you?"

"It isn't at all modest to tell," Marion said, laughing, "but it is true. I would banish every one of those twenty teachers, and reign alone in my glory. No I wouldn't either. I would pick out the very best one among them, and train her for an assistant."

"And manage the whole number yourself!"

"Why not? There are only a hundred of them, and I have managed that number for six hours a day, five days in a week, without difficulty."

"Well, now, let me see just what you think you gain."

"It would take too long to tell. In my own opinion, I gain almost everything. But, in the first place, let me suppose a case. We have one good teacher, we will say, in that class, who knows just what she is about, and comes prepared to be about it. She has, say, two assistants, each carefully trained to a certain work; each understanding that in the event of the detention of the leader one of them will be called on to teach the class, each pledging herself to notify the other of necessary absences. Don't you see that it will rarely, if ever, happen that one of the three cannot be at her post? The very sense of importance and responsibility attached to their office will lessen the chance of absence, while one teacher in twenty is almost sure to be away. Then we have those young girls in their places in the Bible class learning to be teachers indeed."

"But, Miss Wilbur, would not such a work be very hard for the leader?"

"Why harder than the present system in our school? I think, mind you, that it wouldn't be nearly so hard. But, for the sake of the argument, I will say, Why any harder? Why cannot her one assistant relieve her in just the same way that the other twenty are supposed to do now? Is there any known reason why a hundred children cannot repeat the Lord's Prayer together as well as have a lesson taught them together? Children like it, I assure you; there is an enthusiasm in numbers; they would much rather speak aloud and in beautiful unison, as they can be trained to do, than to speak so low that the recitation loses half its beauty, because they must not disturb others.

"Then, I don't know how it is with other teachers, but, theoretically, you may plan out the work of these young teachers as much as you please, and, practically, they will do very much as they please; and it is a great deal harder for me to sit listening to a sort of teaching that I don't like, and know that I am obliged to be still and endure it, than it is to do it myself.

"The idea that one hour of work on the Sabbath is so fearfully wearing, is in my humble opinion all nonsense; those who think so, have never been teachers of graded schools six hours a day, five days in the week, I don't believe. However, that is my opinion, you know. I may be quite mistaken as to theory; but I know as much as this. I am sure I could do the teaching alone, and I am sure that I can't do it with twenty helpers, so I just want to give it up."

"Don't give up the subject yet, please; I am interested. There is an argument on the other side that is very strong, I think. You haven't touched upon it. I have heard a good deal said, and thought it a point well taken, about the personal influence of each teacher. A sense of ownership that teachers of large classes can hardly call out because of their inability to visit their scholars, and to be intimate with their little plans, and with their home life."

Marion did a very rude thing at this point—she sat back in her rocking-chair and laughed. Then she said:

"We are dealing, you remember, with our school. Now, you know the young ladies in that class. What proportion of them, should you imagine, without knowing anything about the facts, do really visit their pupils during the week and keep themselves posted as to the family life of any of them?"

A faint attempt at a smile hovered over Dr. Dennis' face as he said:

"Not many I am afraid. Indeed, to be very truthful, I don't believe there are five."

"I know there are not," Marion said, decidedly. "And my supposition is that our school will average as well as others. There are exceptions, of course, but we are talking about the average. Now, that item sounds real well in a lecture, or on paper, but when you come to the practical part they simply don't do it. Some of them know no more how to do it than kittens would, or than Ruth Erskine knows how to call on the second stratum of society in her own church."

Whereupon both pastor and visitor laughed. Dr. Dennis had heard of Ruth's attempt in that line.

"We have to deal with very common-place human beings, instead of with angels. I think that is the trouble," Marion said, returning to the charge. "We can make nice rules, and they look well and sound beautifully; then if we can carry them out they are delightful, no doubt. But if we can't, why, what are we going to do about it? If the ladies in question were salaried teachers in the day-school, a board of trustees could come together and dismiss them if they did not obey the laws. Who thinks of such a thing in the Sunday-school? It is like calling all these teachers together for a teachers' meeting. You can call them to your heart's content; I know you can, for I have tried it; and if there is not a concert, or a tea-party, or a lecture, or a toothache on the evening in question some of them will come, and the others won't."



CHAPTER XVI.

THEORY VERSUS PRACTICE.

DR. DENNIS sat regarding his caller with a thoughtful air, while she sat back in the rocker and fanned herself, trying to cool off her eagerness somewhat, and feeling that she was exhibiting herself as a very eager person indeed, and this calm man probably thought her impetuous. She resolved that the next remark he called forth should be made very quietly, and in as indifferent a manner as possible.

"Why should not the primary room be classified as well as the main department?" he asked, at last.

To Marion there was so much that was absurd involved in the question that it put her indifference to flight at once.

"Why should there be a separate room at all if they are to be so classified? Why not keep them in the regular department, under the superintendent's eye, and where they can have the benefit of the pastor's remarks?"

"Because while they are so young they need more freedom than can be given them in the main room. They need to be allowed to talk aloud, and to sing frequently, and to repeat in concert."

"Precisely; and they do not need to be set down in corners, to be whispered at for a few minutes. Besides, Dr. Dennis, don't you think that if in the school proper, the scholars were all of nearly the same age and the same mental abilities—I mean if they averaged in that way—it would be wiser to have very large classes and very few teachers?"

"There are reasons in favor of that, and reasons against it," he said, thoughtfully. "I am inclined, however, to think that the arguments in favor overbalance the objections; still, the serious objection is, that a faithful teacher wants little personal talks with her pupils, and will contrive to be personal in a way that she cannot do so well in a large class."

"That is true," Marion said, as one yields a point that is new to her, and that strikes her as being sensible. "But the same objection cannot be made in the primary classes, because little children are innocent and full of faith and frankness. There is no need of special privacy when you talk with them on religious topics; they would just as soon have all the world know that they want to love and serve Jesus as not; they are not a bit ashamed of it; it is not until they grow older, and the influences of silent tongues on that subject all around them have had their effect, that they need to be approached with such caution."

"How is it that you are so much at home in these matters, Miss Wilbur? For one who has been a Christian but a few weeks you amaze me."

Marion laughed and flushed, and felt the first tinge of embarrassment that had troubled her since the talk began.

"Why," she said, hesitatingly, "I suppose, perhaps, I have common sense, and see no reason why it should be smothered when one is talking about such matters. People's brains are not made over when they are converted. The same class of rules apply to them, I suppose, that applied before."

"I shouldn't wonder if a majority of people thought that common sense had nothing to do with religion," he said, laughing; "and that is what makes us silly and sentimental when we try to talk about it. In our effort to be solemn, and suit our words to the theme, we are unnatural. But your statement with regard to the little children is true; I have often observed it."

"That other point, about visiting, was the one that troubled me," Marion said. "It doesn't annihilate it to say that teachers don't visit; they don't, to be sure, with here and there a delightful exception. My experience on this matter, as well as on several other matters connected with the subject, reaches beyond these few weeks of personal experience. I have had my eyes very wide open; I was alive to inconsistencies wherever I found them; the world and the church, and especially the Sunday-school, seemed to me to be full of professions without any practice. I rather enjoyed finding such flaws. Why I thought the thin spots in other people's garments would keep me any warmer, I am sure I don't know; but I was fond of bringing them to the surface.

"Still, because a duty isn't done is no sign that it cannot be. Of course a teacher with six pupils could visit them frequently, while one with a hundred could do it but rarely; and yet, systematic effort would accomplish a great deal in that direction, it seems to me. I don't know why we should have more than fifty people in our churches; certainly the pastor could visit them much more frequently, and keep a better oversight, than when he had eight hundred, as you have; yet we don't think it the best way after all. We recognize the enthusiasm of numbers and the necessity for economizing good workers so long as the field for work is so large.

"But I know a way in which a strong personal influence could be kept over even a hundred children; by keeping watch for the sick and sorrowing in their homes, and establishing an intimacy there, and by making a gathering of some sort, say twice a year, or oftener, if a person could, and giving the day to them; and, well, in a hundred different ways that I will not take your time to speak of; only we teachers of day-schools know that we can make our influence far reaching, even when our numbers are large; and we know that there is such an influence in numbers and in disciplined action, that, other things being equal, we can teach mathematics to a class of fifty better than we can to a class of five; and if mathematics, why not the Lord's Prayer?

"Now I have relieved my mind on this subject," she added, laughing, as she arose, "and I feel a good deal better. Mind, I haven't said at all that the present system cannot be carried out successfully; I only say that I can't do it. I have tried it and failed; it is not according to my way of working."

"But the remedy, my dear friend; in our class, for instance. Suppose we wanted to reorganize, what would we do with the teachers in rule at present?"

Marion dropped back again into her chair with a dismayed little laugh and an expressive shrug of her shapely shoulders.

"Now you have touched a vital difficulty," she said. "I don't pretend to be able to help people out of a scrape like that. Having gotten themselves in, they must get out the best way they can, if there is any way."

"I am surprised that you do not suggest that they be unceremoniously informed that their services are not needed, and advise them to join a Bible class," Dr. Dennis said, dryly. "That is the practical and helpful way that the subject is often disposed of in our conventions. I often wonder if those who so suggest would like to be the pastor of the church where such advice was adopted, and undertake to heal all the sores that would be the result."

"So long as human nature is made of the queer stuff that it is, I offer no such remedy," Marion said, decidedly. "It is very odd that the people who do the least work in this world are the most sensitive as to position, etc. No, I see the trouble in the way. It could be partly disposed of in time, by sending all these sub-classes out into the other school, and organizing a new primary class out of the babies who have not yet come in."

"But there would be an injustice there. It would send out many babies who ought to have the privileges of the primary-room for some time yet."

"And there is another difficulty; it would send out those young girls as teachers of the children, and they are not fit to teach; they should be studying."

"After all," he said, going back to his own thoughts, instead of answering her last remark, "wouldn't the style of teaching that you suggest for this one woman and her assistant involve an unusual degree of talent, and consecration, and abnegation?"

"Yes," Marion said, quickly and earnestly, "I think it would; and I believe that there is no teaching done in our Sabbath-school that is worthy of the name that does not involve all of these requirements; especially is it the case in teaching little children divine truths; one might teach them the alphabet without positive mental injury if they were not fully in sympathy, yet I doubt that; but one cannot teach the Sermon on the Mount in a way to reach the child-heart unless one is thoroughly and solemnly in earnest, and loves the souls of the little children so much that she can give up her very self for them.

"This is my theory; I want to work toward it. That is one of the strong reasons why I think two or three teachers are better for a primary class than twenty; because a church can generally furnish that number of really consecrated workers that she can spare for the primary class, while to find twenty who can be spared for that room one would need to go to paradise I am afraid. Now I know, Dr. Dennis, that such talk sounds as if I were insufferably conceited; but I don't believe I am; I simply know what I am willing to try to do; and, to a certain extent, I know what I can do. Why should I not? I have tried it a long time."

"If you are conceited," Dr. Dennis said, smiling, "it is a real refreshing form for it to appear in. I am almost a convert to your theory; at least so far as I need converting. If I should tell you that something like your idea has always been mine, you would not consider me a hypocrite, would you?"