"If you think so, why have we the present system in our school?"

"My dear friend, I did not manufacture the school; it is as I found it; and there are those young ladies, who, however unfaithful they are—and a few of them are just that—do not reach the only point where they could give positive help, that of resigning, and giving us a chance to do better. Besides, they are, as you say, sensitive; they do not like to be called to account for occasional absences; in fact, they do not like being controlled in any way."

"That is one of the marked difficulties," Marion said, eagerly. "Now I have heard people talk, who led you to infer that it was the easiest thing in life to mold these young teachers into the required shape and form; that you had only to sweetly suggest and advise and direct, and they sweetly succumbed. Now, don't their mothers know that young ladies naturally do no such thing? It is very difficult for them to yield their opinions to one whose authority they do not recognize; and they are not fond of admitting authority even where family life sanctions it. Oh, the whole subject is just teeming with difficulties; put it in any form you will, it seems to me to be a mistake.

"Where you give these young ladies the lesson to teach, the diverse minds that are brought to bear on it make it almost impossible for the leader to give an intelligent summing up. How is she to discover what special point has been taken up by each teacher? As a bit of private experience, I think she will be a fortunate woman if she finds that any point at all has been reached in many of the classes.

"There is only now and then a teacher who believes that little children are capable of understanding the application of a story. I can't understand why, if that is the best method of managing a primary class, people take the trouble to have a separate room and another superintendent. Why don't they stay in the main department? I always thought that one of the special values of a separate room was that the lesson may be given in a distinct and natural tone of voice, and with illustrations and accompaniments that cannot be used, where many classes are together, without disturbing some of them.

"If, on the other hand, the sub-teachers are not expected to give the lesson, but only to teach certain opening recitations, then you have the spectacle of employing a dozen or twenty persons to do the work of one. Then there's another thing; our room is not suited to the plan of subdivision, and there is only occasionally a room that has been built to order, which is—"

"On the whole, you do not at all believe in the plan of subdivision," Dr. Dennis said, laughing.

And then callers came, and Marion took her leave.

"I am not quite sure whether I like him or dislike him, or whether I am afraid of him just a trifle." This she said to the girls as they went home from prayer-meeting. "He has a queer way of branching off from the subject entirely, just when you suppose that you have interested him. Sometimes he interrupts with a sentence that sounds wonderfully as if he might be quizzing you. He is a trifle queer anyway. I don't believe I love him with all the zeal that a person should bestow on a pastor. I am loyal on that subject theoretically, but practically I stand in awe."

"I don't see how you can think him sarcastic," Flossy said. "There is not the least tinge of that element in his nature, I think; at least I have never seen it. I don't feel afraid of him, either; once I thought I should; but he is so gentle and pleasant, and meets one half way, and understands what one wants to tell better than they understand themselves. Oh, I like him ever so much. He is not sarcastic to me."

Marion looked down upon the fair little girl at her side with a smile that had a sort of almost motherly tenderness in it, as she said, gently:

"One would be a very bear to think of quizzing a humming-bird, you know. It would be very silly in him to be sarcastic to you."

Eurie interrupted the talk:

"What is the matter with the prayer-meetings?" she asked. "Do any of you know? I do wish we could do something to make them less forlorn. I am almost homesick every time I go. If there were more people there the room wouldn't look so desolate. Why on earth don't the people come?"

"Constitutionally opposed to prayer-meetings; or it is too warm, or too damp, or too something, for most of them to go out," Marion said.

And Ruth added:

"It is not wonderful that you find sarcastic people in the world, Marion. The habit grows on you."

"Does it," Marion asked, speaking with sadness. "I am sorry to hear that. I really thought I was improving."

"The question is, can we do anything to improve matters?" Eurie said. "Can't we manage to smuggle some more people into that chapel on Wednesday evenings?"

"Invite them to go, do you mean?" Flossy said, and her eyes brightened. "I never thought of that. We might get our friends to go. Who knows what good might be done in that way? What if we try it?"

Ruth looked gloomy. This way of working was wonderfully distasteful to her. She specially disliked what she called thrusting unpopular subjects on people's attention. But she reflected that she had never yet found a way to work which she did like; so she was silent.

Flossy, according to her usual custom, persistently followed up the new idea.

"Let us try it," she said. "Suppose we pledge ourselves each to bring another to the meeting next week."

"If we can," Marion said, significantly.

"Well, of course, some of us can," Eurie answered. "You ought to be able to, anyway. There you are in a school-room, surrounded by hundreds of people who ought to go; and in a boarding-house, coming in contact with dozens of another stamp, who are in equal need. I should think you had opportunities enough."

"I know it," Marion said, promptly. "If I were only situated as you are, with nobody but a father and mother, and a brother and a couple of sisters to ask—people who are of no special consequence to you, and about whom it will make no personal difference to you whether they go to church or not—it would be some excuse for not bringing anybody; but a boarding-house full of men and women, and a room full of school girls!—consider your privileges, Marion Wilbur."

Eurie laughed.

"Oh, I can get Nell to go," she said. "He nearly always does what I want him to. But I was thinking how many you have to work among."

"Six people are as good to work among as sixty, until you get them all," Marion answered, quickly.

As for Ruth, it was only the darkness that hid her curling lip. She someway could not help disliking people who, like Nellis Mitchell, always did what they were asked to do, just to oblige. Also, she dreaded this new plan. She had no one to ask, no one to influence. So she said to herself, gloomily, although (knowing that it was untrue) she did not venture to say it aloud. She gave consent, of course, to the proposition to try by personal effort to increase the number at prayer-meeting. It would be absurd to object to it. She did not care to own that she shrunk from personal effort of this sort; it was a grief to her very soul that she did so shrink.

"Remember, we stand pledged to try for one new face at the prayer-meeting," Eurie said, as she bade them good night. "Pledged to try, you understand, Marion, we can at least do that, even if we don't succeed."

"In the meantime, remember that we have our Bible evening to-morrow," Marion returned. "You are to come bristling with texts from your standpoint; it will not do to forget that."



CHAPTER XVII.

THE DISCUSSION.

MARION went about her dingy room brushing off a bit of dust here, setting a chair straight there, trying in what ways she might to brighten its homeliness. She was a trifle sore sometimes over the contrast between that room and the homes of her three friends. Sometimes she thought it a wonder that they could endure to leave the brightness and cheer that surrounded their home lives and seek her out.

There were times when she was very much tempted to spend a large portion of her not too large salary in bestowing little home-looking things on this corner of the second-rate boarding-house; a rocking-chair; a cozy-looking, bright-covered old-fashioned lounge; a tiny centre-table, instead of the square, boxy-looking thing that she had; not very extravagant her notions were, just a suggestion of comfort and a touch of brightness for her beauty-loving eyes to dwell on; but these home things, and these bright things, cost money, more money than she felt at liberty to spend.

When her necessary expenses of books and dress, and a dozen apparently trifling incidentals were met, there was little enough left to send to that far-away, struggling uncle and aunt, who needed her help sadly enough, and who had shared their little with her in earlier days.

There was no special love about this offering of hers; it was just a matter of hard duty; they had taken care of her in her orphanhood, a grave, preoccupied sort of care, bestowing little time and no love on her that she could discover; at the same time they had never either of them been unkind, and they had fed and clothed her, and never said in her presence that they grudged it; they had never asked her for any return, never seemed to expect any; and they were regularly surprised every half year when the remittance came.

But so far as that was concerned Marion did not know it; they were a very undemonstrative people. Uncle Reuben had told her once that she need not do it, that they had not expected it of her; and Aunt Hannah had added, "No more they didn't." But Marion had hushed them both by a decided sentence, to the effect that it was nothing more than ordinary justice and decency. And she did not know even now that the gratitude they might have expressed was hushed back by her cold, business-like words.

Still, the remittances always went; it had required some special scrimping to make the check the same as usual, and yet bring in Chautauqua; it had been delayed beyond its usual time by these new departures, and it was on this particular evening that she was getting it ready for the mail. For seven years, twice a year, she had regularly written her note:

AUNT HANNAH:—I inclose in this letter a check for ——. I hope you are as well as usual. In haste, M. J. WILBUR.

This, or a kindred sentence as brief and as much to the point. To-night her fingers had played with the pen instead of writing, and at last, with a curious smile hovering around her lip, she wrote the unaccustomed words, "Dear Aunt." It would have taken very little to have made the smile into a quiver; it seemed just then so strange that she should have no one to write that word "dear" to; that she should use it so rarely that it actually looked like a stranger to her. Then the writing went on thus:

"I hope I have not caused you discomfort by being somewhat later than usual with your check. Matters shaped themselves in such a way that I could not send it before. I hope it will be of a little help and comfort to you. I wish it were larger. Give my re—love to Uncle Reuben."

The "re" was the beginning of the word "regards," but she thought better of it and wrote "love." He was her father's brother, and the only relative she had. Then the pen paused again, and the writer gnawed at the painted holder, and mused, and looked sober first, then bright-faced, and finally she dashed down this line:

"Dear Aunt Hannah, I have found my father's Friend, even the Lord Jesus Christ. He is indeed mighty to save, as father used to say that he was. I have proved it, for he has saved me. I wish you and Uncle Reuben knew him. "Yours truly, MARION."

I suppose Marion would have been very much surprised had she known what I know, that Aunt Hannah and Uncle Reuben shed tears over that letter, and put it in the family Bible. And, someway, they felt more thankful for the check than they had ever done before.

Marion did not know this, but she knew that her own heart felt lighter than usual as she hurried about her room. The girls came before she was fairly through with her preparations—a bright trio, with enough of beauty and grace and elegance about them to fairly make her room glow.

"Here we are," said Eurie. "We have run the gauntlet of five calls and a concert, and I don't know how many other things in prospective, for the sake of getting to you."

"Did you come alone?"

"No; my blessed Nell came with us to the door, and most dreadfully did he want to come in. I should have let him in, only I knew by Ruth's face she thought it awful; but he would have enjoyed the evening. Nell does enjoy new things."

"There is no special sensation about Bible verses. I presume they would have palled on him before the evening was over." This was said in Ruth's coldest tones.

"You are mistaken in that, my lady Ruth. I have found several verses in my search that have given me a real sensation. Besides which, I have proved my side beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, and I am very anxious to begin."

Marion laughed.

"I dare say we have each proved our sides to our entire satisfaction," she said. "The question is, which side will bear the test of our combined intellects being brought to bear on it? Did you bring your Bibles, girls? Oh, yes, you are armed. Flossy, your Bible is splendid; when the millennium dawns I am going to have just such a one. By the way, won't that be a blissful time? Don't you want to live to see it? Eurie, inasmuch as you are so anxious to begin, you may do so. Let us 'carry on our investigations in a scientific way,' as Prof. Easton says. Give us your 'unanswerable argument,' and I will answer it with my unanswerable one on the other side; then if Ruth can prove to us that we are both mistaken, and each can follow her own judgment in the matter, we will be quenched, you see, unless Flossy can give a balancing vote."

"Well, in the first place," Eurie said, "I found to my infinite astonishment, and, of course, to my delight, that the Bible actually stated that there was a time to dance. Now, if there is a time for it, of course it is the proper thing to do; that just settles the whole question. How absurd it would be to put in the Bible a statement that there was a time to dance, and then to tell us that it was wrong to dance!"

"Eurie, are you in earnest or in sport?" Marion asked, at last, looking at her with a puzzled air, and not sure whether to laugh or be disgusted.

"A little of both," Eurie said, breaking into a laugh. "But now, to be serious, there really is such a verse; did you know it? I am sure I didn't. I was very much astonished; and I think it does prove something. It indicates that dancing is a legitimate amusement, and one that was indulged in during those times."

"Do you advocate its use under the same circumstances in which it was used in those times?"

"I'm sure I don't know. Was there anything peculiar in its use?"

"Didn't you follow out the references as to dancing?"

"No, indeed, I didn't. I wish I had. Does it give an account of it? That would have been better yet."

"It would have enlightened you somewhat," Marion said, laughing. "If you had been on the other side now, you would have been sure to have followed out the connection as I did; then you would have found that to be true to your Bible you must dance in prayer-meeting, or in church on the Sabbath, or at some time when you desired to express religious joy."

"Pooh!" said Eurie, "Now is that so?"

"Of course it's so. Just amuse yourself by looking up the references to the word in the concordance, and I will read them for our enlightenment."

"Well," said Eurie, after several readings, "I admit that I am rather glad that form of worship is done away with. I am fond of dancing, but I don't care to indulge when I go to prayer-meeting. But, after all, that doesn't prove that dancing is wrong."

"Nor right?" Ruth said, questioningly. "Doesn't it simply prove nothing at all? That is just as I said; we have to decide these questions for ourselves."

"But, Eurie, did you content yourself with just one text? I thought you were to have an army of them."

"What is the use in that?" Ruth asked. "One text is as good as a dozen if it proves one's position."

"A multitude of witnesses," Marion said, significantly; and added, "girls, Ruth has but one text in support of her position; see if she has."

"Well, I have another," said Eurie. "The wisest man who ever lived said, 'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.' Now I am sure that advocates bright, cheerful, merry times, just such as one has in dancing; and there are dozens of such verses, indicating that it is a duty we owe to society to have happy and merry times together; and a simpler way of doing it than any I know is to dance. We are not gossiping, nor saying censorious things, when we are dancing; and we are having a very pleasant time for our friends."

"'Is any merry, let him sing psalms,'" quoted Marion. "Would you like to indulge in that entertainment at the same time you were dancing; or do you think the same state of mind could be expressed as well by either dancing, or psalm-singing, as one chose?"

"Eurie Mitchell, you are just being nonsensical!" Ruth said, speaking in a half-annoyed tone. "You are not absurd enough to suppose that either of those verses are arguments in favor of dancing, or against dancing, or indeed have anything to do with the subject? What is the use in trying to make people think you are a simpleton, when you aren't."

"Dreadful!" said Eurie. "Is that what I'm doing? Now, I thought I was proving the subtle nature of my argumentative powers. See here, I will be as sober as a judge. No, I don't think those verses have to do with it; at least the latter hasn't. I admit that I thought the fact that a time to dance was mentioned in the Bible was an item in its favor as far as it went; but it seems I should rather have said as far as I went, for it went farther, as Marion has made me prove with that dreadful concordance of hers. We don't own such a terrible book as that, and I have to go skimming over the whole Bible in a distracting manner. I just happened on the verse that says 'there is a time to dance,' and I didn't know but there might be a special providence in it. But now, frankly, I am on the side that Ruth has taken. It seems to be a question that is left to individual judgment. There is no 'thus saith the Lord' about it, any more than there is about having company, and going out to tea, and a dozen other things. We are to do in these matters what we think is right; and that, in my opinion, is all there is about it."

"Then you retire from the lists?" Marion asked.

"Not a bit of it. I am just as emphatically of the opinion that there is no harm in dancing as I ever was. What I say is, that the Bible is silent on that subject, leaving each to judge for herself."

"'As he thinketh in his heart, so is he,'" quoted Ruth. "That is my verse, one of them; and I think it is unanswerable. If you, Marion, think it is wicked to dance, then you would be doing a wrong thing to dance; but, Eurie, believing it to be right and proper, has a right to dance. Each person as he thinks in his heart."

"Then, if I think in my heart that it is right to go skating on Sunday, it will be quite right for me to go? Is that the reasoning, Ruth?"

"No, of course; because in that instance you have the direct command, 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'"

"But who is going to prove to me in what way I should keep it holy? I may skate with very good thoughts in my heart, and feel that I am keeping the spirit of the command; and, if I think so in my heart, why, isn't it so?"

"You know it isn't a parallel case," Ruth said, slightly nettled.

"Flossy, would you speak for a dollar?" Eurie asked, suddenly turning to her. She had been utterly grave and silent during all this war of words, but, to judge from her face, by no means uninterested. She shook her head now, with a quiet smile.

"I know what I think," she said, "but I don't want to speak yet; only I want to know, Ruth, about that verse; I found that, and thought about it. I couldn't see that it means what you think it does. I used to think in my very heart that joining the church, and trying to do about right, was all there was of religion; but I have found that I was wonderfully mistaken. Can't persons be honest, and yet be very much in the dark because they have not informed themselves?"

"Why, dear me!" said Marion, "only see, Ruth, where your doctrine would lead you! What about the heathen women who think in their hearts that they do a good deed when they give their babies to the crocodiles?"

"I found that verse about Paul persecuting all who called on the name of Jesus, and he says he verily thought he was doing God's service." This was Flossy's added word.

"See here," said Eurie, "we are not getting at it at all. I haven't any verses, and you have demolished Ruth's. The way is for you and Flossy to open your batteries on us, and let us prove to you that they don't any of them mean a single word they say, or you say; or something, anything, so that we win the argument. What I want to know is, what earthly harm do people see in dancing? I don't mean, of course, going to balls and mingling with all sorts of people and dancing indecent figures. I mean the way we girls have been in the habit of it, Ruth and Flossy and I. We never went to a ball in our lives, and we were never injured by dancing, so far as I can discover, and yet we have done a good deal of it. Now I love to dance; it is the very pleasantest amusement I can think of; and yet I honestly want to get at the truth of this matter; I want to learn; I don't in the least know why churches and Christians think such dancing is wrong. I couldn't find a thing in the Bible that showed me the reason. To be sure I had very little time to look, and a very ignorant brain to do it with, and no helps. But I am ready to be convinced, if anybody has anything that will convince me."

"Just let me ask you a question," Marion said: "Why did you think, before you were converted, that it was wrong for Christian people to dance?"

"How do you know I did?" asked Eurie, flushing and laughing.

"Never mind how I know; though you must have forgotten some of the remarks I have heard you make about others, to ask me. But please tell me."

"Honestly, then, I don't know; and it is that thought, or rather that remembrance, which disturbs me now. I had a feeling that someway it was an inconsistent thing to do, and that if I was converted I should have to give it up, and it was a real stumbling-block in my way for some days. But I don't this minute know a single definite reason why I, in common with the rest of the girls and the young men in our set, felt amused whenever we saw dancing church-members. I have thought perhaps it was prejudice, or a misunderstanding of the Christian life."



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE RESULT.

"NOW, what I want," said Marion, "is to have you people who are posted answer a few questions. You know I am not a dancer; I have only stood aside and looked on; but I have as high a respect for common sense as any of you can have, and I want to use some of it in this matter; so just tell me, is it true or not that there is a style of dancing that is considered improper in the extreme?"

"Why, yes, of course there is," Eurie said, quickly.

"Is it the style that is indulged in at our ordinary balls, where all sorts of characters are admitted, where, in fact, anyone who can buy a ticket and dress well is welcome? You know you were particular to state that none of you went to balls; are these some of the reasons?"

"My principal reason is," Ruth said, with an upward curve of her haughty lip, "that I do not care to associate with all sorts of people, either in the ball-room or anywhere else."

"Besides which, you are reasonably particular, who of your acquaintances have the privilege of frequently clasping your hand and placing an arm caressingly around your waist, to say nothing of almost carrying you through the room, are you not?"

Ruth turned toward the questioner flashing eyes, while she said:

"That is very unusual language to address to us, Marion. Possibly we are quite as high-toned in our feelings as yourself."

"Oh, but now, I appeal to your reason and common sense; you say, yourself, that these should be our guide. Isn't it true that you, as a dancer, allow familiarity that you would consider positively insulting under other circumstances? Am I mistaken in your opinion as to the proper treatment that ladies should receive from gentlemen at all other times save when they are dancing?"

"It's a solemn fact," said Eurie, laughing at the folly of her position, "that the man with whom I dance has a privilege that if he should undertake to assume at any other time would endanger his being knocked down if my brother Nell was within sight."

"And it is true that there are lengths to which dancers go that you would not permit under any circumstances?"

"Undeniable," Eurie said again. "Yet I don't see what that proves. There are lengths to which you can carry almost any amusement. The point is, we don't carry them to any such lengths."

"That isn't the whole point, Eurie. There are many amusements which no one carries to improper lengths. We do not hear of their being so perverted; but we do not hear of them in the ball-room. The question is, has dancing such a tendency? Do impure people have dance-houses which it is a shame for a person to enter? Are young men and young women, our brothers and sisters led astray in them? We mustn't be too delicate to speak on these things, for they exist; and they are found among people for whom the Lord died, and many of them will be reclaimed and be in heaven with us. They are our brethren; can they be led away by the influences of the dance? If we are all really in earnest in this matter, will you each give your opinion on this one point?"

"I suppose it is unquestionable," Ruth said, "that dance-houses are in existence, and that they are patronized by the lowest and vilest of human beings; but the sort of dance indulged in has no more likeness to the dances of cultivated society than—"

"Than the drunkard lying in the gutter bears likeness to the elegant young man of fashion who takes his social sips from a silver goblet lined with gold at his mother's refreshment table," Marion said, interrupting her, and speaking with energy. "Yet you will admit that the one may be, and awfully often is, the stepping stone to the other."

"It is true," Eurie said; "both are true. I never thought of it before, but there is no denying it."

As for Flossy, she simply bowed her head, as one interested but not excited.

"Then may I bring in one of my verses, 'Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.' Does that apply? If the world can carry this amusement to such depths of degradation, and if the elegant parlor dance is or can be in the remotest degree the first step thereto, are we keeping ourselves unspotted if we have anything to do with it, countenance it in any way? Don't you see that the question, after all, is the same in many respects as the card-playing one? We have been over this ground before.

"Suppose we grant, for argument's sake, that not one of you is in danger of being led away to any sort of excess, and I should hardly dare to admit it in my own case, because of a verse in this same old book, 'Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall;' but if it should be so, let me give you another of my selections—rather, let me read the entire argument."

Whereupon she turned to the tenth chapter of First Corinthians and read St. Paul's argument about eating meat offered to idols, pausing with special emphasis over the words, "Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other." "Did I understand you to say, Eurie, that it is a very general belief among dancers that Christians are inconsistent who indulge in this amusement."

"It is a provoking truth that there is. Don't you know, Ruth, how we used to be merry over the Symonds girls and that young Winters who were church-members? Well, they made rather greater pretensions with their religion than some others did, and that made us specially amused over them."

"Then, Eurie, wasn't their influence unfortunate on you?"

"I am not on your side, Mistress Wilbur. You should have more conscience than to keep me all the time condemning myself!"

"That is answer enough," Marion said, smiling. "I am only asking for information, you know. I never danced. But in the light of that confession, hear this: 'But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. Let not, then, your good be evil spoken of.' Isn't that precisely what you were doing of the good in those church-members, Eurie? Now a sophist would possibly say that the argument of Paul had reference to food offered to idols, and not to dancing; but I think here is a chance for us to exercise that judgment and common sense which we are so fond of talking about.

"The main point seems to be not to destroy those for whom Christ died. Does it make any difference whether we do it with our digestive organs or with our feet? But what is the sophist going to do with this: 'It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.' You see he may, or may not, be a fool for allowing himself to be led astray. St. Paul says nothing about that. He simply directs as to the Christian's duty in the matter."

Ruth made a movement of impatience.

"You are arguing, Marion, on the supposition that a great many people are led astray by dancing; whereas I don't believe that to be the case."

"Do you believe one soul ever was?"

"Why, yes, I suppose so."

"We even know one," Eurie said, speaking low, and looking very grave.

"Do you believe it is possible that another soul may in the next million years?"

"Of course it is possible."

"Then the question is, how much is one soul worth? I don't feel prepared to estimate it, do you?" To which question Ruth made no reply "There is another point," Marion said. "You young ladies talk about being careful with whom you dance. Don't you accept the attentions of strange young gentlemen, who have been introduced to you by your fashionable friends? Take Mr. Townsend, the young man who came here a stranger, and was introduced in society by the Wagners, because they met him when abroad. Didn't you dance with him, Eurie Mitchell?"

"Dozens of times," said Eurie, promptly.

"And Flossy, didn't you?"

Flossy nodded her golden head.

"Well, now you know, I suppose, that he has proved to be a perfect libertine. Honestly, wouldn't you both feel better if he had never had his arm around you?"

"Marion, your way of saying that thing is simply disgusting!" Ruth said, in great heat.

"Is it my way of saying it, or is it the thing itself?" Marion asked, coolly. "I tell you, girls, it is impossible to know whether the man who dresses well, and calls on you at stated intervals, looking and talking like a gentleman, is not a very Satan, who will lead away the pretty guileless, unsuspecting young girl who is worth his trouble; and the leading often and often commences with a dance; and the young girl may never have been allowed to dance with him at all had not stately and entirely unexceptionable leaders of society, like our Ruth here, allowed it first.

"It is the same question after all, and it narrows down to a fine point. A thing that can possibly lead one to eternal death, a Christian has no business to meddle with, even if he knows of but one soul in a million years who has been so wrecked. In all this we have not even glanced at the endless directions to 'redeem the time,' to be 'instant in season and out of season, to 'work while the day lasts,' 'to watch and be sober.' What do all these verses mean? Are we obeying them when we spend half the night in a whirl of wild pleasure?

"The fact remains that a majority of people are not temperate in their dancing; they do it night after night; they long after it, and are miserable if the weather, or the cough, keeps them away. I know dozens of such young ladies; I have them as my pupils; my heart trembles for them; they are just intoxicated with dancing; and they quote you, Ruth Erskine, as an example when I try to talk with them; I have heard them. Whether it is wrong for other people or not, as true as I sit here I can tell you this: I have two girls in my class who are killing themselves with this amusement, carried to its least damaging extreme, for they still think they are very careful with whom they dance; and you are in a measure, at least, responsible for their folly. You needn't say they are simpletons; I think they are, but what of it? 'Shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died?'"

"Nell made a remark that startled me a little, it was so queer." Eurie said this after the startled hush that fell over them at the close of Marion's eager sentence had in part subsided. "We were speaking of a party where we had been one evening and some of the girls had danced every set, till they were completely worn out. Some of them had been dancing with rather questionable young men, too; for I shall have to own that all the gentlemen who get admitted into fashionable parlors are not angels by any means. I know there are several, who are supposed to be of the first society, that father has forbidden me ever to dance with.

"We were talking about some of these, and about the extreme manner in which the dancing was carried on, when Nell said: 'I'll tell you what, Eurie, I hope my wife wasn't there to-night.' 'Dear me!' I said, 'I didn't know she was in existence. Where do you keep her?' He was as sober as a judge. 'She is on the earth somewhere, of course, if I am to have her,' he said; 'and what I say is, I hope she wasn't there. If I thought she was among those dancers, I would go and knock the fellow down who insulted her by swinging her around in that fashion. I want my wife's hand to be kept for me to hold; I don't thank anybody else for doing that part for me.'"

"Precisely!" Marion said. "It is considered unladylike, I believe, for people to talk about love and marriage. I never could see why; I'm sure neither of them is wicked. But I suppose each of us occasionally thinks of the possibility of having a friend as dear even as a husband. How would you like it, girls, to have him spend his evenings dancing with first one young lady and then another, offering them attentions that, under any other circumstances, would stamp him as a libertine?

"Whichever way you look at this question it is a disagreeable one to me. I may never be married; it is not at all likely that I ever shall; I ought to have been thinking about it long ago, if I was ever going to indulge in that sort of life; but if I should, I'm heartily glad of one thing—and, mind, I mean it—that no man but my husband shall ever put his arm around me, nor hold my hand, unless it is to keep me from actual danger; falling over a precipice, you know, or some such unusual matter as that."

"Flossy hasn't opened her lips this evening. Why don't you talk, child? Does Marion overwhelm you? I don't wonder. Such a tornado as she has poured out upon us! I never heard the like in my life. It isn't all in the Bible; that is one comfort. Though, dear me! I don't know but the spirit of it is. What do you think about it all?"

"Sure enough," Marion said, turning to Flossy, as Eurie paused. "Little Flossy, where are your verses? You were going to give us whatever you found in the Bible. You were the best witness of all, because you brought such an unprejudiced determination to the search. What did you find?"

"My search didn't take the form I meant it should," Flossy said. "I didn't look far nor long, and I did not decide the question for anybody else, only for myself. I found only two verses, two pieces of verses; I mean, I stopped at those, and thought about them all the rest of the week. These are the ones," and Flossy's soft sweet voice repeated them without turning to the Bible:

"'Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus;' 'Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.' Those verses just held me; I thought about dancing, about all the times in which I had danced, and the people with whom I had danced, and the words we had said to each other, and I could not see that in any possible way it could be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, or that it could be done heartily, as unto the Lord. I settled my own heart with those words; that for me to dance after I knew that whatever in word or deed I did, I was pledged to do heartily for the Lord, would be an impossibility."

An absolute hush fell upon them all. Marion looked from one to the other of the flushed and eager faces, and then at the sweet drooping face of their little Flossy.

"We have spent our strength vainly," she said, at last. "It is our privilege to get up higher; to look at all these things from the mount whereon God will let us stand if we want to climb. I think little Flossy has got there."

"After all," Eurie said, "that verse would cut off a great many things that are considered harmless."

"What does that prove, my beloved Eureka?" Marion said, quickly. "'If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee,' is another Bible verse. These verses of Flossy's mean something, surely. What do they mean, is the question left for us to decide? After all, Ruth, I agree with you; it is a question that must be left to our judgment and common sense; only we are bound to strengthen our common sense and confirm our judgments in the light of the lamp that is promised as a guide to our feet."

Almost nothing was said among them after that, except the commonplaces of good-nights. The next afternoon, as Marion was working out a refractory example in algebra for Gracie Dennis, she bent lower over her slate, and said:

"Miss Wilbur, did you know that your friends, Miss Erskine, Miss Shipley and Miss Mitchell, had all declined Mrs. Garland's invitation, and sent her an informal little note signed by them all, to the effect that they had decided not to dance any more?"

"No," said Marion, the rich blood mounting to her temples, and her face breaking into a smile. "How did you hear?"

"Mrs. Garland told my father; she said she honored them for their consistency, and thought more highly of their new departure than she ever had before. It is rather remarkable so early in their Christian life, don't you think?"

"Rather," Marion said, with a smile, and she followed it by a soft little sigh. She had not been invited to Mrs. Garland's. There was no opportunity for her to show whether she was consistent or not.



CHAPTER XIX.

KEEPING THE PROMISE.

IT was curious how our four girls set about enlarging the prayer-meeting. That idea had taken hold of them as the next thing to be done.

"The wonder was," Eurie said, "that Christian people had not worked at it before. I am sure," she added, "that if anyone had invited me to attend, I should have gone long ago, just to please, if it was one that I cared to please."

And Marion answered with a smile:

"I am sure you would, too, with your present feelings."

Still none of them doubted but that they would have success. They saw little of each other during the days that intervened, and their plan necessarily involved the going alone, or with what company they could gather, instead of meeting and keeping each other company, as they had done in the first days of their prayer-meeting life.

Marion came first, and alone. She went forward to their usual seat with a very forlorn and desolate air. She had entered upon the work with enthusiasm, and with eager desire and expectation of success. To be sure she was a long time deciding whom to ask, and several times changed her plans.

At last her heart settled on Miss Banks, the friend with whom she had almost been intimate before these new intimacies gathered around her. Latterly they had said little to each other. Miss Banks had seemed to avoid Marion since that rainy Monday when they came in contact so sharply. She was not exactly rude, nor in the least unkind; she simply seemed to feel that the points of congeniality between them were broken, and so avoided her.

She did this so successfully, that, even after Marion's thought to invite her to the meeting had taken decided shape, it was difficult to find the opportunity. Having gotten the idea, however, she was persistent in it; and at last, during recess, on the very day of the meeting, she came across her in the library, looking aimlessly over the rows of books.

"In search of wisdom, or recreation?" Marion asked, stopping beside her, and speaking with the familiarity of former days.

"In search of some tiresome references for my class in philosophy. Some of the scholars are provokingly in earnest in the study, and will not be satisfied with the platitudes of the text-book."

"That is a refreshing departure from the ordinary state of things, isn't it?" Marion asked, laughing at the way in which the progress of her pupils was put. Then, without waiting for an answer, and already feeling her resolution beginning to cool, she plunged into the subject that interested her. "I have been in search of you all the morning."

"That's surprising," Miss Banks said, coolly. "Couldn't I be found? I have been no further away than my school-room?"

"Well, I mean looking for you at a time when you were not engaged, or perhaps looking forward to seeing you at such a time, would be a more proper way of putting it," said Marion, trying to smile, and yet feeling a trifle annoyed.

"One is apt to be somewhat engaged in a school-room during school-hours, especially if one is a teacher."

They were not getting on at all. Marion decided to speak without trying to bring herself gracefully to the point.

"I want to ask a favor of you. Will you go to meeting with me to-night?"

"To meeting," Miss Banks repeated, without turning from the book-case. "What meeting is there to-night?"

"Why, the prayer-meeting at the First Church. There is always a meeting there on Wednesday nights."

Miss Banks turned herself slowly away from the book she was examining and fixed her clear, cold gray eyes on Marion:

"And so there has been every Wednesday evening during the five years that we have been in school together, I presume. To what can I be indebted for such an invitation at this late day?"

It was very hard for Marion not to get angry. She knew this cold composure was intended as a rebuke to herself for presuming to have withdrawn from the clique that had hitherto spent much time together.

"What is the use of this?" she asked; a shade of impatience in her voice, though she tried to control it. "You know, Miss Banks, that I profess to have made a discovery during the last few weeks; that I try to arrange all my actions with a view to the new revelations of life and duty which I have certainly had; in simple language you know that, whereas, I not long ago presumed to scoff at conversion, and at the idea of a life abiding in Christ, I believe now that I have been converted, and that the Lord Jesus is my Friend and Brother; I want to tell you that I have found rest and peace in him. Is it any wonder that I should desire it for my friends? I do honestly crave for you the same experience that I have enjoyed, and to that end I have asked you to attend the meeting with me to-night."

It is impossible to describe the changes on Miss Banks' face during this sentence. There was a touch of embarrassment, and more than a touch of incredulity, and over all a look of great amazement. She continued to survey Marion from head to foot with those cold, gray eyes, for as much as a minute after she had ceased speaking. Then she said, speaking slowly, as if she were measuring every word:

"I am sure I ought to be grateful for the trouble you have taken; the more so as I had not presumed to think that you had any interest in either my body or my soul. But as I have had no new and surprising revelations, and know nothing about the Friend and Brother of whom you speak, I may be excused from coveting the like experience with yourself, however delightful you may have found it. As to the meeting, I went once to that church to attend a prayer-meeting, too, and if there can be a more refined and long drawn-out exhibition of dullness than was presented to us there, I don't know where to look for it. I wonder why the school-bell doesn't ring? It is three minutes past the time by my watch."

Marion, without an attempt at a reply, turned and went swiftly down the hall. She was glad that just then the tardy bell pealed forth, and that she was obliged to go at once to the recitation-room and involve herself in the intricacies of algebra.

Without this incentive to self-control, she felt that she would have given way to the hot disappointed tears that were choking in her throat. How sad her heart was as she sat there alone in the prayer-room. It was early and but few were present. She had never felt so much alone. The companionship which had been so close and so constant during the few weeks past seemed suddenly to have been removed from her, and when she essayed to go back to the old friend, she had stood coldly and heartlessly—aye, worse than that—mockingly aloof.

She had overheard her, that very afternoon, detailing to one of the under teachers, fragments of the conversation in the library. Marion's heart was wounded to its very depths. Perhaps it is little wonder that she had made no other attempt to secure company for the evening. There were school-girls by the score that she might have asked; doubtless some one of the number would accept her invitation, but she had not thought so. She had shrunken from any other effort, in mortal terror.

"I am not fitted for such work," she said, in bitterness of soul; "not even for such work; what can I do?" and then, despite the class, she had brushed away a tear. So there she sat alone, till suddenly the door opened with more force than usual, and closed with a little bang, and Eurie Mitchell, with a face on which there glowed traces of excitement, came like a whiff of wind and rustled into a seat beside her, alone like herself.

"You here?" she said, and there was surprise in her whisper. "Thought you would be late, and not be alone. I am glad of it—I mean I am almost glad. Don't you think, Nell wouldn't come with me! I counted on him as a matter of course, he is so obliging—always willing to take me wherever I want to go, and often disarranging his own engagements so that I need not be disappointed. I was just as sure of him I thought as I was of myself, and then I coaxed him harder than I ever did before in my life, and he wouldn't come in." He came to the door with me, and said I needn't be afraid but that he would be on hand to see me home, and he would see safely home any number of girls that I chose to drum up, but as for sitting in here a whole hour waiting for it to be time to go home, that was beyond him—too much for mortal patience!

"Wasn't it just too bad! I was so sure of it, too. I told him about our plans—about our promise, indeed, and how I had counted on him, and all he said was: 'Don't you know the old proverb, sis: "Never count your chickens before they are hatched;" or, a more elegant phrasing of it, "Never eat your fish till you catch him?" Now, I'm not caught yet; someway the right sort of bait hasn't reached me yet.' I was never so disappointed in my life! Didn't you try to get some one to come?"

"Yes," said Marion, "and failed." She forced herself to say that much. How could Eurie go through with all these details? "If her heart had ached as mine does, she couldn't," Marion told herself. She might have known if she had used her judgment that Eurie's heart was not of the sort that would ever ache over anything as hers could; and yet Eurie was bitterly disappointed.

She had counted on Nell, and expected him, had high hopes for him; and here they were dashed into nothingness! Who knew that he could be so obstinate over a trifle? Surely it was a trifle just to come to prayer-meeting once! She knew she would have done it for him, even in the days when it would have been a bore. She did not understand it at all.

Meantime, Ruth had been having her experiences. This promise of hers troubled her. Perhaps you cannot imagine what an exceedingly disagreeable thing it seemed to her to go hunting up somebody to go to prayer-meeting with her. Where could she turn? There were so few people with whom she came in contact that it would not be absurd to ask.

Her father she put aside at once as entirely out of the question. It was simply an absurdity to think of asking him to go to prayer-meeting! He rarely went to church even on the Sabbath; less often now than he used to do. It would simply be annoying him and exposing religion to his contempt; so his daughter reasoned. She sighed over it while she reasoned; she wished most earnestly that it were not so; she prayed, and she thought it was with all her heart, that God would speak to her father in some way, by some voice that he would heed; and yet she allowed herself to be sure that his only and cherished daughter had the one voice that could not hope to influence him in the least.

Well, there was her friend, Mr. Wayne. I wonder if I can describe to you how impossible it seemed to her to ask him to go? Not that he would not have accompanied her; he would in a minute; he would do almost anything she asked; she felt as sure that she could get him to occupy a seat in the First Church prayer-room that evening as she felt sure of going there herself; but she asked herself, of what earthly use would it be?

He would go simply to please what he would suppose was a whim of hers; he would listen with an amused smile, slightly tinged with sarcasm, to all the words that would be spoken that evening, and he would have ready a hundred mildly funny things to say about them when the meeting closed; for weeks afterward he would be apt to bring in nicely fitting quotations gleaned from that evening of watchfulness, fitting them into absurd places, and making them seem the veriest folly—that would be the fruit.

Ruth shrank with all her soul from such a result; these things were sacred to her; she did not see how it would be possible to endure the quizzical turn that would be given to them. I want you to notice that in all this reasoning she did not see that she had undertaken not only her own work but the Lord's. When one attempts not only to drop the seed, but to make the fruit that shall spring up, no wonder one stands back appalled!

Yet was she not busying her heart with the results? The end of it was that she decided whatever else she did, to say nothing to Mr. Wayne about the meeting. No, I am mistaken, that was not the end; there suddenly came in with these musings a startling thought:

"If I cannot endure the foolishness that will result from one evening, how am I to endure companionship for a lifetime?"

That was a thought that would not slumber again. But she must find some one whom she was willing to ask to go to prayer-meeting; there was her miserable promise hedging her in.

Who was she willing to ask? She ran over her list of acquaintances; there wasn't one. How strange it was! She could think of those whom Flossy might ask, and there was Eurie surrounded by a large family; and as for Marion, her opportunities were unlimited; but for her forlorn self, in all the large circle of her acquaintance, there seemed no one to ask. The truth was, Ruth was shiveringly afraid of casting pearls before swine—not that she put it in that way; but she would rather have been struck than to have been made an object of ridicule. And yet there were times when she wished she had lived in the days of martyrdom! The church of to-day is full of just such martyr spirits!

The result was precisely what might have been expected: she dallied with her miserable cowardice, which she did not call by that name at all, until there really was no person within reach to invite to the meeting. Who would have supposed all this of Ruth Erskine! No one would have been less likely to have done so than herself.

She went alone to the meeting at a late hour, and with a very miserable, sore, sad heart, to which Marion's was nothing in comparison. Yet there was something accomplished, if she had but known it. She was beginning to understand herself; she had a much lower opinion of Ruth Erskine as she sat there meeting the wondering gaze of Eurie, and the quick, inquiring glance of Marion than she ever had felt in her life.

I said she was late, but Flossy was later. Somebody else must have been at work about that meeting, and have been more successful than our girls, for the room was fuller than usual. Marion had begun to grow anxious for the little Flossy that had crept so near to their hearts, and to make frequent turnings of the head to see if she were not coming.

When at last she shimmered down the aisle, a soft, bright rainbow, for she hadn't given over wearing her favorite colors, and she could no more help getting them on becomingly than a bird can help looking graceful in its plumage. (Why should either of them try to help it?) But Flossy was not alone; there was a tall portly form, and a splendidly balanced head, resting on firm shoulders, that followed her down to the seat where the girls were waiting for her.



CHAPTER XX.

HOW IT WAS DONE.

FLOSSY came quite down the broad aisle to the seat which the girls had, by tacit understanding, chosen for their own, her face just radiant with a sort of surprised satisfaction, and the gentleman who followed her with an assured and measured step was none other than Judge Erskine himself. He may have been surprised at his own appearance in that place for prayer, but no surprise of his could compare with the amazement of his daughter Ruth. For once in her life her well-bred composure forsook her, and her look could be called nothing less than an absolute stare.

Of the four, Flossy only had succeeded. The way of it was this:

Having become a realist, in the most emphatic sense of that word, to have promised to bring some one with her to meeting if she possibly could, meant to her just that, and nothing less than that. Of course, such an understanding of a promise made it impossible to stop with the asking of one person, or two, or three, provided her invitations met with only refusals.

She had started out as confident of success as Eurie; she felt nearly certain of Col. Baker; not because he was any more likely of his own will to choose the prayer-meeting than he had been all his life thus far, but because he was growing every day more anxious to give pleasure to Flossy.

Having some dim sense of this in her heart, Flossy reasoned that it would be right to put this power of hers to the good use of winning him to the meeting, for who could tell what words from God's Spirit might reach him while there? So she asked him to go.

To her surprise, and to Col. Baker's real annoyance, he was obliged to refuse her. He was more than willing to go, even to a prayer-meeting, if thereby he could take one step forward toward the place in her life that he desired to fill. Therefore his regrets were profuse and sincere.

It was club night, and, most unluckily, they were to meet with him, and he was to provide the entertainment. Under almost any other circumstances he could have been excused. Had he even had the remotest idea that Flossy would have liked his company that evening, he could have made arrangements for a change of evening for the club; that is, had he known of it earlier. But, as it was, she would see how impossible it would be for him to get away. Quick-witted Flossy took him at his word.

"Would he remember, then," she asked, with her most winning smile, "that of all places where she could possibly like to see him regularly, the Wednesday evening prayer-meeting at the First Church was the place."

What a bitter pill an evening prayer-meeting would be to Col. Baker! But he did not tell her so. He was even growing to think that he could do that, for a while at least.

From him Flossy turned to her brother; but it was club night to him, too, and while he had not the excuse that the entertainer of the club certainly had, it served very well as an excuse, though he was frank enough to add, "As for that, I don't believe I should go if I hadn't an engagement; I won't be hypocrite enough to go to the prayer-meeting." Such strange ideas have some otherwise sensible people on this subject of hypocrisy!

It required a good deal of courage for Flossy to ask her mother, but she accomplished it, and received in reply an astonished stare, a half-embarrassed laugh, and the expression:

"What an absurd little fanatic you are getting to be, Flossy! I am sure one wouldn't have looked for it in a child like you! Me? Oh, dear, no! I can't go; I never walk so far you know; at least very rarely, and Kitty will have the carriage in use for Mrs. Waterman's reception. Why don't you go there, child? It really isn't treating Mrs. Waterman well; she is such an old friend."

These were a few of the many efforts which Flossy made. They met with like results, until at last the evening in question found her somewhat belated and alone, ringing at Judge Erskine's mansion. That important personage being in the hall, in the act of going out to the post-office, he opened the door and met her hurried, almost breathless, question:

"Judge Erskine, is Ruth gone? Oh, excuse me. Good-evening. I am in such haste that I forgot courtesy. Do you think Ruth is gone?"

Yes, Judge Erskine knew that his daughter was out, for she stepped into the library to leave a message a few moments ago, and she was then dressed for the street, and had passed out a moment afterward.

Then did he know whether Katie Flinn, the chamber-maid, was in? "Of course you won't know," she added, blushing and smiling at the absurdity of her question. "I mean could you find out for me whether she is in, and can I speak to her just a minute?"

He was fortunately wiser to-night than she gave him credit for being, Judge Erskine said, with a courtly bow and smile.

It so happened that just after his daughter departed, Katie had sought him, asking permission to be out that evening until nine o'clock, a permission that she had forgotten to secure of his daughter; therefore, as a most unusual circumstance which must have occurred for Flossy's special benefit, he was posted even as to Katie's whereabouts. He was unprepared for the sudden flushing of Flossy's cheeks, and quiver of her almost baby chin.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" she said, and there were actual tears in her blue eyes.

Judge Erskine saw them, and felt as if he were in some way a monster. He hastened to be sympathetic. If she was alone and timid it would afford him nothing but pleasure to see her safely to any part of the city she chose to mention. He was going out simply for a stroll, with no business whatever.

"Oh, it isn't that," Flossy said, hastily. "I am such a little way from the chapel, and it is so early I shall not be afraid; but I am so disappointed. You see, Judge Erskine, we girls were each to bring one with us to the meeting to-night, and I have tried so hard, I have asked almost a dozen people, and none of them could go. At last I happened to think of your Katie Flinn: I knew she was in our Sunday-school, and I thought perhaps if I asked her she would go with me, if Ruth had not done it before me. She was my last chance, and I am more disappointed than I can tell you."

Shall I try to describe to you what a strange sensation Judge Erskine felt in the region of his heart as he stood there in the hall with that pretty blushing girl, who seemed to him only a child, and found that her quivering chin and swimming eyes meant simply that she had failed in securing even his chambermaid to attend the prayer-meeting? He never remembered to have had such an astonishing feeling, nor such a queer choking sensation in his throat.

His own daughter was dignified and stately; the very picture of her father, every one said; he had no idea that she could shed a tear any more than he could himself; but this timid, flushing, trembling little girl seemed made of some other material than just the clay that he supposed himself to be composed of.

He stood regarding her with a sort of pleased wonder. In common with many other stately gentlemen, he very much admired real, unaffected, artless childhood. It seemed to him that a grieved child stood before him. How could he comfort her? If a doll, now, with curling hair and blue eyes could do it, how promptly should it be bought and given to this flesh-and-blood doll before him.

But no, nothing short of some one to accompany her to prayer-meeting would appease this little troubled bit of humanity. In the magnanimity of his haughty heart the learned judge took a sudden and almost overpowering resolution.

Could he go? he asked her. To be sure, he was not Katie Flinn, but he would do his best to take the place of that personage if she would kindly let him go to the said meeting with her.

It was worth a dozen sittings even in prayer-meeting, Judge Erskine thought, to see the sudden clearing of that tearful face; the sudden radiant outlook from those wet eyes.

Would he go? Would he really go? Could anything be more splendid!

And, verily, Judge Erskine thought, as he beheld her shining face, that there hardly could. He felt precisely as you do when you have been unselfish toward a pretty child, who, someway, has won a warm spot in your heart.

He went to the First Church prayer-meeting for the first time with no higher motive than that—never mind, he went. Flossy Shipley certainly was not responsible for the motive of his going; neither did it in any degree affect the honest, earnest, persistent effort she had made that day. Her account of it was simple enough, when the girls met afterward to talk over their efforts.

"Why, you know," she said, "I actually promised to bring some one with me if I possibly could; so there was nothing for it but to try in every possible way up to the very last minute of the time I had. But, after all, I brought the one whom I had not the least idea of asking; he asked himself."

"Well," Marion said, after a period of amazed silence, "I have made two discoveries. One is, that people may possibly have tried before this to enlarge the prayer-meeting; possibly we may not, after all, be the originators of that brilliant idea; they may have tried, and failed even as we did; for I have learned that it is not so easy a matter as it at first appears; it needs a power behind the wills of people to get them to do even so simple a thing as that. The other important thought is, there are two ways of keeping a promise; one is to make an attempt and fail, saying to our contented consciences, 'There! I've done my duty, and it is no use you see;' and the other is to persist in attempt after attempt, until the very pertinacity of our faith accomplishes the work for us. What if we follow the example of our little Flossy after this, and let a promise mean something?"

"My example!" Flossy said, with wide open eyes. "Why, I only asked people, just as I said I would; but they wouldn't come."

There was one young lady who walked home from that eventful prayer-meeting with a very unsatisfied conscience. Ruth Erskine could not get away from the feeling that she was a shirker; all the more so, because the person who had sat very near her was her father! not brought there by any invitation from her; it was not that she had tried and failed; that form of it would have been an infinite relief; she simply had not tried, and she made herself honestly confess to herself that the trouble was, she could not be satisfied with one who was within the reach of her asking.

Yet conscience, working all alone, is a very uncomfortable and disagreeable companion, and often accomplishes for the time being nothing beyond making his victim disagreeable. This was Ruth to the fullest extent of her power; she realized it, and in a measure felt ashamed of herself, and struggled a little for a better state of mind.

It seemed ill payment for the courtesy which had made Harold Wayne forsake the club before supper for the purpose of walking home with her from church. He was unusually kind, too, and patient. Part of her trouble, be it known, was her determination in her heart not to be driven by that dreadful conscience into saying a single personal word to Harold Wayne. Not that she put it in that way; bless you, no! Satan rarely blunders enough to speak out plainly; he has a dozen smooth-sounding phrases that mean the same thing.

"People need to be approached very carefully on very special occasions, which are not apt to occur; they need to be approached by just such persons, and in just such well-chosen words," etc. etc.

Though why it should require such infinite tact and care and skill to say to a friend, "I wish you were going to heaven with me," when the person would say without the slightest hesitation, "I wish you were going to Europe with me," and be accounted an idiot if he made talk about tact and skill and caution, I am sure I don't know.

Yet all these things Ruth said to herself. The reason the thought ruffled her was because her honest conscience knew they were false, and that she had a right to say, "Harold, I wish you were a Christian;" and had no right at all with the results.

She simply could not bring herself to say it; she did not really know why, herself; probably Satan did.

Mr. Wayne was unusually quiet and grave; he seemed to be doing what he could to lead Ruth into serious talk; he asked about the meeting, whether there were many out, and whether she enjoyed it.

"I sort of like Dr. Dennis," he said. "He is tremendously in earnest; but why shouldn't a man be in earnest if he believes what he is talking about. Do you suppose he does, Ruth?"

"Of course," Ruth said, shortly, almost crossly; "you know he does. Why do you ask such a foolish question?"

"Oh, I don't know; half the time it seems to me as if the religious people were trying to humbug the world; because, you see, they don't act as if they were in dead earnest—very few of them do, at least."

"That is a very easy thing to say, and people seem to be fond of saying it," Ruth said: and then she simply would not talk on that subject or any other; she was miserably unhappy; an awakened conscience, toyed with, is a very fruitful source of misery. She was glad when the walk was concluded.

"Shall I come in?" Mr. Wayne asked, lingering on the step, half smiling, half wistful. "What do you advise, shall I go back to the club or call on you?"

Now, Ruth hated that club; she was much afraid of its influence over her friend; she had determined, as soon as she could plan a line of operation, to set systematically at work to withdraw him from its influence; but she was not ready for it yet. And, among other things that she was not ready for, was a call from Mr. Wayne; it seemed to her that in her present miserable, unsettled state it would be simply impossible to carry on a conversation with him. True to her usually frank nature, she answered, promptly:

"I have certainly no desire for you to go to the club, either on this evening or any other; but, to be frank, I would rather be alone this evening; I want to think over some matters of importance, and to decide them. You will not think strangely of me for saying that, will you?"

"Oh, no," he said, and he smiled kindly on her; yet he was very much disappointed; he showed it in his face.

Many a time afterward, as Ruth sat thinking over this conversation, recalling every little detail of it, recalling the look on his face, and the peculiar sadness in his eyes, she thought within herself, "If I had said, 'Harold, I want you to come in; I want to talk with you; I want you to decide now to live for Christ,' I wonder what he would have answered."

But she did not say it. Instead, she turned from him and went into the house; and—he went directly to his club: an unaccountable gloom hung over him; he must have companionship; if not with his chosen and promised wife, then with the club. That was just what Ruth was to him; and it was one of the questions that tormented her.

There were reasons why thought about it had forced itself upon her during the last few days. She was pledged to him long before she found this new experience. The question was, Could she fulfil those pledges? Had they a thought in common now? Could she live with him the sort of life that she had promised to live, and that she solemnly meant to live? If she could, was it right to do so? You see she had enough to torment her; only she set about thinking of it in so strange a manner; not at all as she would have thought about it if the pledges she had given him had meant to her all that they mean to some, all that they ought to mean to any one who makes them. This phase of it also troubled her.



CHAPTER XXI.

RUTH AND HAROLD.

THERE had been in Judge Erskine's mind a slight sense of wonderment as to how he should meet his daughter the morning after his astounding appearance at prayer-meeting. Such a new and singular departure was it, that he even felt a slight shade of embarrassment.

But, before the hour of meeting her arrived, his thoughts were turned into an entirely new channel. He met her, looking very grave, and with a touch of tenderness about his manner that was new to her. She, on her part, was not much more at rest than she had been the evening before. She realized that her heart was in an actual state of rebellion against any form of decided Christian work that she could plan. Clearly, something was wrong with her. If she had been familiar with a certain old Christian, she might have borrowed his language to express in part her feeling.

"To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I know not." Not quite that, either, for while she said, "I can't do this thing, or that thing," she was clear-minded enough to see that it simply meant, after all, "I will not." The will was at fault, and she knew it. She did not fully comprehend yet that she had set out to be a Christian, and at the same time to have her own way in the least little thing; but she had a glimmering sense that such was the trouble.

Her father, after taking surreptitious glances at her pale face and troubled eyes, decided finally that what was to be said must be said, and asked, abruptly:

"When did you see Harold, my daughter?"

Ruth started, and the question made the blood rush to her face, she did not know why.

"I saw him last evening, after prayer-meeting, I believe," she answered, speaking in her usual quiet tone, but fixing an inquiring look on her father.

"Did he speak of not feeling well?"

"No, sir; not at all. Why?"

"I hear that he is quite sick this morning; was taken in the night. Something like a fit, I should judge; may be nothing but a slight attack, brought on by late suppers. He was at the club last night. I thought I would call after breakfast, and learn the extent of the illness. If you want to send a message or note, I can deliver it."

That was the beginning of dreary days. Ruth prepared her note—a tender, comforting one; but it was brought back to her; and as her father handed it to her he said:

"He can't read it now, daughter. I dare say it would comfort him if he could; but he is delirious; didn't know me; hasn't known any one since he was taken in the night. Keep the letter till this passes off, then he will be ready for it."

Very kind and sympathetic were Ruth's friends. The girls came to see her, and kissed her wistfully, with tears in their eyes, but they had little to say. They knew just how sick her friend was, and they felt as though there was nothing left to say. Her father neglected his business to stay at home with her, and in many a little, thoughtful way touched her heavy heart, as the hours dragged by.

Not many hours to wait. It was in the early dawn of the third morning after the news had reached her, that the door-bell pealed sharply through the house. There was but one servant up; she answered the bell.

Ruth was up and dressed, and stood in the hall above, listening for what that bell might bring to her. She heard the hurried voice at the door; heard the peremptory order:

"I want to see Judge Erskine right away."

She knew the voice belonged to Nellis Mitchell, and she went down to him in the library. He turned swiftly at the opening of the door, then stood still, and a look of blank dismay swept over his face.

"It was your father that I wanted to see," he said, quickly.

"I know," she answered, speaking in her usual tone. "I heard your message. My father has not yet risen. He will be down presently. Meantime, I thought you might possibly have news of Mr. Wayne's condition. Can you tell me what your father thinks of him this morning?"

How very quiet and composed she was! It seemed impossible to realize that she was the promised wife of the man for whom she was asking. Nellis Mitchell was distressed; he did not know what to say or do. His distress showed itself plainly on his face.

"You need not be afraid to tell me," she said, half smiling, and speaking more gently than she was apt to speak to this young man. It almost seemed that she was trying to sustain him, and help him to tell his story. "I am not a child you know," she added, still with a smile.

"You do not know what you are talking about," he said, hoarsely. "Ruth, won't you please go up-stairs and tell your father I want him as soon as possible?"

She turned from him half impatiently.

"My father will be down as soon as possible," she said, coldly. "He is not accustomed to keep gentlemen waiting beyond what is necessary. Meantime, if you know, will you be kind enough to give me news of Mr. Wayne? I beg you, Mr. Mitchell, to remember that I am not a silly child, to whom you need be afraid to give a message, if you have one."

He must answer her now; there was no escape.

"He is," he began, and then he stopped. And her clear, cold, grave eyes looked right at him and waited. His next sentence commenced almost in a moan. "Oh, Ruth, you will make me tell you! It is all over. He has gone."

"Gone!" she repeated, incredulously, still staring at him. "Where is he gone?"

What an awful question! She realized it herself almost the instant it passed her lips. It made her shudder visibly. But she neither screamed nor fainted, nor in any way, except that strange one, betrayed emotion. Instead, she said:

"Be seated, Mr. Mitchell, and excuse me; father is coming." Then she turned and went back up-stairs.

He heard her firm step on the stairs as she went slowly up; and this poor bearer of faithful tidings shut his face into both his hands and groaned aloud for such misery as could not vent itself in any natural way. He understood that there was something more than ordinary sorrow in Ruth's face. It was as if she had been petrified.

Through the days that followed Ruth passed as one in a dream. Everyone was very kind. Her father showed a talent for patience and gentleness that no one had known he possessed.

The girls came to see her; but she would not be seen. She shrank from them. They did not wonder at that; they were half relieved that it was so. Such a pall seemed to them to have settled suddenly over her life that they felt at a loss what to say, how to meet her. So when she sent to them, from her darkened and gloomy room, kind messages of thanks for their kindness, and asked them to further show their sympathy by allowing her to stay utterly alone for awhile, they drew relieved sighs and went away. This much they understood. It was not a time for words.

As for Flossy, she should not have been numbered among them. She did not call at all; she sent by Nellis Mitchell a tiny bouquet of lilies of the valley, lying inside of a cool, broad green lily leaf, and on a slip of paper twisted in with it was written:

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." How Ruth blessed her for that word! Verily she felt that she was walking through the very blackest of the shadows! It reminded her that she had a friend.

Slowly the hours dragged on. The grand and solemn funeral was planned and the plans carried out. Mr. Wayne was among the very wealthy of the city. His father's mansion was shrouded in its appropriate crape, the rooms and the halls and the rich, dark solemn coffin glittering with its solid silver screws and handles, were almost hidden in rare and costly flowers. Ruth, in the deepest of mourning robes, accompanied by her father, from whose shoulder swept long streamers of crape, sat in the Erskine carriage and followed directly after the hearse, chief mourner in the long and solemn train.

In every conceivable way that love could devise and wealth carry out, were the last tokens of respect paid to the quiet clay that understood not what was passing around it.

The music was by the quartette choir of the First Church, and was like a wail of angel voices in its wonderful pathos and tenderness.

The pastor spoke a few words, tenderly, solemnly pointing the mourners to One who alone could sustain, earnestly urging those who knew nothing of the love of Christ to take refuge now in his open arms and find rest there.

But alas, alas! not a single word could he say about the soul that had gone out from that silent body before them; gone to live forever. Was it possible for those holding such belief as theirs to have a shadow of hope that the end of such a life as his had been could be bright?

Not one of those who understood anything about this matter dared for an instant to hope it. They understood the awful solemn silence of the minister. There was nothing for that grave but silence. Hope for the living, and he pointed them earnestly to the source of all hope; but for the dead, silence.

What an awfully solemn task to conduct such funeral services. The pastor may not read the comforting words: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," because before them lies one who did not die in the Lord, and common sense tells the most thoughtless that if those are blessed who die in the Lord there must be a reverse side to the picture, else no sense to the statement. So the verse must be passed by. It is too late to help the dead, and it need not tear the hearts of the living. He can not read, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."

God forbid, prays the sad pastor in his heart, that mother or father or friend shall so die as to go to this one, who did not die in the Lord. We can not even hope for that. All the long line of tender, helpful verses, glowing with light for the coming morning, shining with immortality and unending union must be passed by; for each and every one of them have a clause which shows unmistakably that the immortality is glorious only under certain conditions, and in this case they have not been met.

There must in these verses, too, be a reverse side, or else they mean nothing. What shall the pastor do? Clearly he can only say, "In the midst of life we are in death." That is true; his audience feel it; and he can only pray: "So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."

But, oh, how can the mothers stand by open graves wherein are laid their sons or daughters, and endure the thought that it is a separation that shall stretch through eternity! How wonderful that any of us are careless or thoughtless for a moment so long as we have a child or a friend unsafe!

During all this time of trial Ruth's three friends were hovering around her, trying by every possible attention and thoughtfulness to help or comfort her, and yet feeling their powerlessness in such a way that it almost made them shrink from trying.

"Words are such a mockery," Marion said to her one evening, as they sat together. "Sometimes I almost hate myself for trying to speak to you at all. What can any human being say to one who is shrouded in an awful sorrow?"

Ruth shuddered visibly.

"It is an 'awful' sorrow," she said; "you have used the right word with which to express it; but there is a shade to it that you do not understand. I don't believe that by experience you ever will; I pray God that you may not. Think of burying a friend in the grave without the slightest hope of ever meeting him in peace again!"

"You have nothing to do with that, Ruth; God is the judge. I don't think you ought to allow yourself to think of it."

"There I think you are mistaken; I believe I ought to think of it. Marion, you know, and I know, that there is simply nothing at all on which to build a hope of meeting in peace the man we buried last week. You think it almost shocking that I can speak of him in that way; I know you do. People are apt to hide behind the very flimsiest veil of fancied hopes when they talk of such things.

"Perhaps a merciful God permits some to hug a worthless hope when they think of their dead treasures, since it can do no harm to those who are gone; but I am not one of that class of people. Besides, I am appearing to you, and everybody, in a false light. I am tired of it. Marion, Mr. Wayne was not to me what he ought to have been, since I was his promised wife. You know how I have changed of late; you know there was hardly a thought or feeling of mine in which he could sympathize; but the worst of it is, he never did sympathize with me in the true sense; he never filled my heart.

"My promise to him was one of those false steps that people like me, who are ruled by society, take because it seems to be the proper thing to do next, or because we feel it might as well be that as anything; perhaps because it will please one's father in a business point of view, or please one's own sense of importance; satisfy one's desire to be foremost in the fashionable world. I am humiliating myself to tell you, plainly, that my promise meant not much more than that. I did not realize how empty it was till I found that all my plans, and aims, and hopes in life were changed. That, in short, life had come to seem more to me than a glittering weariness, that was to be borne with the best grace I could assume. This was nearly all I had found in society, or hoped to find.

"I followed Mr. Wayne to the grave in the position of chief mourner, because I felt that it was a token of respect that I owed to the memory of the man whom I had wronged, and because I felt that the world had no business with our private affairs; but he was not to me what people think he was, and I feel as though I wanted you to know it, even though it humiliates me beyond measure to make the confession. At the same time I have an awful sorrow, too awful to be expressed in words.

"Marion, I think you will understand what I mean when I say that I believe I have the blood of a lost soul clinging to my garments. I know as well as I sit here to-night that I might have influenced Harold Wayne into the right way. I know his love for me was so sincere, and so strong, that he would have been willing to try to do almost anything that I had asked. I believe in my soul that had I urged the matter of personal salvation on his immediate attention, he would have given it thought. But I never did—never.

"Marion, even on that last evening of his life—I mean before he was sick—when he himself invited the words, I was silent. I did not mean to continue so; I meant, when I got ready, to speak to him about this matter; I meant to do everything right; but I was determined to take my own time for it, and I took it, and now he is gone! Marion, you know nothing about such a sorrow as that! Now, why did I act in this insane way?

"I know the reason, one of them at least; and the awful selfishness and cowardice of it only brands me deeper. It was because I was afraid to have him become a Christian man! I knew if he did I should have no excuse for breaking the pledges that had passed between us; in plain words, I would have no excuse for not marrying him; and I did not want to do it! I felt that marriage vows would mean to me in the future what they never meant in the past, and that there was really nothing in common between Mr. Wayne and myself; that I could not assent to the marriage service with him, and be guiltless before God. So to spare myself, to have what looked like a conscientious excuse for breaking vows that ought never to have been made, I deliberately sacrificed his soul! Marion Wilbur, think of that!"

"You didn't mean to do that!" Marion said, in an awe-stricken voice; she was astonished and shocked, and bewildered as to what to say.

Ruth answered her almost fiercely:

"No, I didn't mean to; and as to that, I never meant to do anything that was not just right in my life; but I meant to have just exactly my own way of doing things, and I tell you I took it. Now, Marion, while I blame myself as no other person ever can, I still blame others. I was never taught as I should have been about the sacredness of human loves, and the awfulness of human vows and pledges. I was never taught that for girls to dally with such pledges, to flirt with them, before they knew anything about life or about their own hearts was a sin in the sight of God. I ought to have been so taught.

"Perhaps if I had had a mother to teach me I should have been different; but I am not even sure of that. Mothers seem to me to allow strange trifling with these subjects, even if they do not actually prepare the way. But all this does not relieve me. I have sinned; no one but myself understands how deeply, and no one but me knows the bitterness of it.

"Now I feel as though the whole of the rest of my life must be given to atone for this horrible fatal mistake. I wasted the last hour I ever had with a soul, and I have before me the awful consciousness that I might have saved it.

"It is all done now, and can never be undone; that is the saddest part of it. But there is one thing I can do; I need never live through a like experience again; I will give the rest of my life to atone for the past; I will never again be guilty of coming in contact with a soul, unprepared for death, without urging upon that soul, as often as I have opportunity, the necessity for preparation; I see plainly that it is the important thing in life."

There hovered over Marion's mind, while these last sentences were being spoken, words something like these:

"The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin."

She almost said to Ruth that even for this sin the atonement had been made; she must not try to make another. But the error that only faintly glimmered in Ruth's sentence was so mixed with solemn and helpful truth that she felt at a loss as to whether there was error at all, and so held her peace.



CHAPTER XXII.

REVIVAL.

AS the early autumn months slipped away, and touches of winter began to show around them, it became evident that a new feeling was stirring in the First Church.

No need now to work for increased numbers at the prayer-meeting; at least there was not the need that formerly existed; the room was full, and the meetings solemn and earnest. The Spirit of God was hovering over the place. Drops of the coming shower were already beginning to fall.

What was the cause of the quickened hearts? Who knew save the Watcher on the tower in the eternal city? Was it because of the sudden, and solemn, and hopeless death occurring in the very center of what was called "the first circles?" Was it the spirit developed apparently by this death, showing itself in eager, indefatigable effort wherever Ruth Erskine went, with whomsoever she came in contact?

Was it Marion Wilbur's new way of teaching, that included not only the intellect of her pupils, but looked beyond that, with loving word, for the empty soul? Was it Eurie Mitchell's patient way of taking up home work and care, that had been distasteful to her, and that she had shunned in days gone by? Was it Flossy Shipley's way of teaching the Sabbath-school lessons to "those boys" of hers?

Was it the quickened sense which throbbed in the almost discouraged heart of the pastor whenever he came in contact with either of these four? Was it the patient, persistent, unassuming work of John Warden as he went about in the shop among his fellow-workmen, dropping an earnest word here, a pressing invitation there?

Who shall tell whether either, or all of these influences, combined with hundreds of others, set in motion by like causes, were the beginnings of the solemn and blessed harvest time, that dawned at last on those who had been sowing in tears?

The fact was apparent. Even in the First Church, that model of propriety and respectability, that church which had so feared excitement or unusual efforts of any sort, there was a revival!

Among those who were coming, and who were growing willing to let others know that they were awakening to a sense of the importance of these things, were Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell, Eurie's father and mother. To themselves they did not hesitate to say that the change in Eurie was so marked and so increasing in its power over her life, that it obliged them to think seriously of this thing.