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?"

"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.

Among the interested also were a score or more of girls from Marion's
room in the great school; and more came every day. Marion's face was
shining, and she gathered her brood about her as a mother would the
children of her love and longing.

Among them were four of Flossy's boys; and half a dozen boys, friends of
theirs, who were not Flossy's, and who yet, someway, joined her train
and managed to be "counted in." Among them was Judge Erskine--I mean
among those who continued to come to the meetings--coming alone, and
being reverent and thoughtful during the services, but going away with
bowed head, and making no sign: there was something in the way with
Judge Erskine that no one understood.

As for Ruth--how she worked during these days! Not with a glad light in
her eyes, such as Marion and Flossy had; not with a satisfied face as if
the question of something to do that was worth doing, and that helped
her, had been settled, such as Eurie Mitchell wore; rather with a sad
feverish impatience to accomplish _results_; shrinking from nothing,
willing to do anything, go anywhere, yet meeting with far less
encouragement, and seeing far less fruits, than any of the others. She
did not realize that she was working with a sort of desperate intention
of overbalancing the mischief of her mistakes by so much work now, that
there would be a sort of even balance at the scales. She would have
been shocked had she understood her own heart.

Meantime, where was Satan? Content to let this reaping time alone? Oh,
bless you, no! Never busier, never more alert, and watchful, and
cautious, and _skillful_ than now! It was wonderful, too, how many
helpers he found whose names were actually on the roll of the First
Church!

There were those who had had in mind all the fall having little
entertainments, "just a few friends, you know, nothing like a party;
they were sorry to be obliged to have them just now while there were
meetings; but Miss Gilmore was in town, and would be here so short a
time, they _must_ invite her; it would not be treating her well to take
no notice of her visit; and, really, the people whom they proposed to
invite were those who did not attend church, so no harm could be done."

These were some of Satan's helpers. There were others who were more
outspoken. They "did not believe in special efforts; seasons of
excitement; religious dissipations--nothing else. People should be
religious at all times, not put it on for special occasions."

It was well enough to have a special season for parties, and a special
season for going to the sea-side, and a special season for doing one's
dressmaking, and a special season for cleaning house, and a special
season for everything under the sun but religious meetings; these should
be conducted--at all times. Was that what they meant? Oh, dear, no! They
should not be conducted at all. Was _that_ what they meant? Who should
tell what they _did_ mean? One lady said:

"The idea of the bell ringing every evening for prayer-meeting! It was
too absurd! People must have a little time for recreation; these weeks
just before the holidays were always by common consent the time for
festivities of all sorts; it was downright folly to expect young people
to give up their pleasures and go every evening to meeting."

So she issued her cards for a party, and gathered as many of the young
people about her as she could. And this woman was a member of the First
Church! And this woman professed to believe in the verse that read,
"Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the
glory of God!"

There were others who went to these parties, hushing their consciences
meantime by the explanation that the social duties were important ones,
and that one whose heart was right could serve God as well having
religious conversation at a party, as she could occupying a seat at a
prayer-meeting. Perhaps they really believed it. What marvel? Satan
himself is transformed into an angel of light.

The trouble about the sincerity was, that those same persons were not
unaware of certain sneering remarks that were being made, to the effect
that if church-members could go to parties when there were meetings at
their own church, _they_ could surely be excused from the meetings; and
they could not have been utterly ignorant of the verse that read
plainly, "Let not your good be evil spoken of."

There were still others who compromised matters, taking the meetings for
the first hour of the evening and a party for the next three; and the
lookers-on said, sneeringly, that there was a strife going on between
the soul, the flesh and the devil, and they wondered which would
conquer!

So all these classes flourished and worked in their different ways in
the First Church; just as they always _will_ work, until that day when
the wheat shall be forever separated from the tares. The wonder is why
so many blinded eyes _must_ insist that because there are tares, there
is therefore no wheat. The Lord said, "Let both grow together until the
harvest."

"I don't understand it," Ruth said one day to Marion, as they talked the
work over, and tried to lay plans for future helpfulness. "Why do you
suppose it is that I seem able to do nothing at all? I try with all my
might; my heart is surely in it, and I long with a desire that seems
almost as if it would consume me, to see some fruit of my work, and yet
I don't. What _can_ be the difficulty?"

"I don't know," Marion said, speaking hesitatingly, as one who would
like to say more if she dared. "I don't feel competent to answer that
question, and yet, sometimes, I have feared that you might be trying to
compromise with the Lord."

"I don't understand you; in what way do you mean? I try to do my duty in
every place that I can think of. I am not compromising on any subject,
so far as I know. If I am, I will certainly be grateful to anyone who
will point it out to me."

"I am not sure that it is sufficiently clear to my own mind to be able
to point it out," Marion said, still visibly embarrassed. "But, Ruth, it
sometimes seems to me as if you had said to yourself, 'Now I will work
so much and pray so much, and then I ought to have rest from the pain
that is goading me on, and I ought to be able to feel that I have atoned
for past mistakes, and the account against me is squared.'"

Ruth turned from her impatiently.

"You are a strange comforter," she said, almost indignantly. "Do you
mean by that to intimate that you think I ought _never_ to look or hope
for rest of mind again because I have made one fearful mistake? Do you
mean that I ought always to carry with me the sense of the burden?"

"I mean no such thing. You cannot think I so estimate the power of the
sacrifice for sin. Ruth, I mean simply this: Nothing that you or I can
do can possibly make one sin white, one mistake as though it had not
been, give one moment of rest to a troubled heart. But the blood of
Jesus Christ can do all this, and it does seem to me that you are
ignoring it, and trying to work out your own rest."

Ruth was thoughtful; the look of vexation passed from her face.

"It may be so," she said, after a long silence. "I begin dimly to
understand your meaning; but I don't know how to help it, how to feel
differently. I surely ought to work, and surely I have a right to expect
results."

"In one sense, yes, and in another I don't believe we have. I begin to
feel more and more that you and I have _got_ in some way to be made to
understand that it is not our way, but the Lord's, that we must be
willing to do, or, what is harder, to leave undone, exactly what he
says, _do_ or _not_ do. I can't help feeling that you are planning in
your own heart just what ought to be done, and then allowing yourself to
feel almost indignant and ill-used because the work is not
accomplished."

"I don't know how you have succeeded in seeing so deeply into my heart,"
Ruth said, with a wan smile. "I believe it is so, though I am not sure
that I ever saw it before."

"I know why I see it; because it is my temptation as well as yours. You
and I are both strong-willed; we have both been used to having our own
way; we want to continue to have it; we want to do the right things
provided we can have the choosing of them. Flossy, now, with her
yielding nature, is willing to _be led_, as you and I are not. I have to
fight against this tendency to carry out my plans and look for _my_
results all the time. The fact is, Ruth, we must learn to work for
_Christ_, and not set up business for ourselves, and still expect him to
give the wages."

"Still," said Ruth, "I don't know. There seems to me to be nothing that
I am not willing to do. I can't think of anything so hard that I would
not unhesitatingly do it. I have changed wonderfully in that respect. A
little while ago I was not willing to do anything. Now I am ready for
anything that can be done."

"Are you?" Marion asked, with a visible shiver. "Ruth, are you _sure_?
I can't say that; I want to say it, and I pray that I may be able; yet I
can think of so many things that I might be called on to do that I
shrink from. I have given up trying to do them, and fallen back on the
promise, 'My grace is sufficient,' only praying, 'Lord, give me the
needed grace for to-day; I will not reach out for to-morrow.' And, Ruth,
I feel sure that neither you nor I must try to cover our past errors
with present usefulness. Nothing but the blood of Christ can cover _any_
wrong; we _must_ rest on that, and on that alone."

"I believe I only understand in part what you mean. I don't see how you
ever reached so far ahead of me in faith and in understanding. But I
believe you _are_ farther. Still, I can't think of anything that I am
not willing and ready to do. I wish I might be tried; I wish He would
give me some work, not of my own planning, that He might see how willing
I am to do anything."

This was Ruth's last remark to her friend that evening. Flossy and Eurie
both came in, and they went out to the meeting together, Ruth thinking
still of the talk they had, and feeling sure that she could do whatever
she found, and yet the Master was planning a way for her that very
evening, the entrance to which she had never seen, never dreamed of as
possible. So many ways he has for leading us! Blessed are those who have
come to the experience that makes them willing to be led, even in
darkness and blindness, trusting to the Sun of Righteousness for light.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE STRANGE STORY.

JUDGE ERSKINE was in his library, pacing slowly back and forth, his
forehead lined with heavy wrinkles, and his face wearing the expression
of one involved in deep and troubled thought. He had just come home from
the evening meeting, the last meeting of the series that had held the
attention of so many hearts during four weeks of harvest time.

Judge Erskine had been a silent and attentive listener. All through the
solemnities of the sermon, that seemed written for his sake, and to
point right at him, he had never moved his keen, steady eyes away from
the preacher's face. The text of that sermon he was not likely to
forget. He had looked it up, and read it, with its connections, the
moment he reached the privacy of his library.

"The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." That
was the text. Judge Erskine said it over and over to his own soul. It
was true; it fitted his condition as precisely as though it had been
written for him. The harvest that would tell for eternity had been
reaped all around him. He had looked, and listened, and resolved; and
still he stood outside, ungarnered.

Moreover, one portion of the solemn sermon fitted him, also. When Dr.
Dennis spoke of those who had let this season pass, unhelped, because
they had an inner life that would not bear the gaze of the public,
because they were not willing to drag out their past and cast it away
from them, Judge Erskine had started and fixed a stern glance on the
preacher.

Did he know his secret, that had been hidden away with such persistent
care? What scoundrel could have enlightened him? This, only for a
moment; then he settled back and realized his folly. Dr. Dennis knew
nothing of himself or his past. Then came that other awfully solemn
thought--there was One who did? Could it be that his voice had
instructed the pastor what special point to make in that sermon, with
such emphasis and power? Was the keen eye of the Eternal God pointing
his finger, now, at him, and saying; "Thou art the man?"

He _knew_ all this was true; he knew that the work of the past month had
greatly moved him; he knew on the evening when the text had been,
"Almost thou persuadest _me_ to be a Christian," that he had felt
himself _almost_ persuaded; he knew then, as he did now, that but one
thing stood in the way of his entire persuasion.

As he walked up and down his library on this evening, he felt fully
persuaded in his own mind that the time had arrived when he was being
called on persistently for a decision. More than that, he felt that the
decision was to be not only for time, but for eternity; that he _must_
settle the question of his future then and there. He had locked the door
after him, as he came into the library, with a sort of grim
determination to settle the question before he stepped into the outside
world again. How would it be settled? He did not know himself. He did
not dare to think how it would end; he simply felt that the conflict
must end.

Meantime, Ruth was up-stairs on her knees, praying for her father. Her
heart felt very heavy. She had prayed for this father with all her soul;
prayed, with what she felt was a degree of faith, that this evening, at
the meeting, he might settle the question at issue, and settle it
forever. She had felt a bitter, and almost an overwhelming,
disappointment that the meeting closed and left him just where he had
stood for a month.

There seemed nothing left to do. She had not spared her words, her
entreaties. She had gotten bravely over her fears of approaching her
father. But now it seemed to her that there was nothing left to say. She
could still pray, and it was with a half-despairing cry that she fell on
her knees, realizing in her very soul that only the power of God could
convert her father. Into the midst of this longing, clinging cry for
help there came a knock.

"Judge Erskine would like to have you come to the library for a few
minutes, if you have not retired."

This was Katie Flinn's message. And Ruth, as she swiftly set about
obeying the summons, said:

"Oh, Katie, pray for father!" for among those who, during the last few
weeks, had learned to pray was Katie Flinn. Poor Katie, with the simple
child-like faith and loving heart which she brought to the service, was
destined to be a shining light in a dark world; and the glory thereof
would sparkle forever in Flossy Shipley's crown.

Judge Erskine turned as his daughter opened the door, and motioned her
to a seat. Then he continued his walk. Something in his face hushed into
silence the words that were on her lips; but presently he stopped before
her, and his voice startled her with its strangeness.

"My daughter, I have something to tell you, and something to ask you. I
shall have to cause you great grief and shame, and I want to begin first
by asking you to forgive your father."

Ruth felt her face growing pale. What _could_ he mean? Had she not
always looked up to him as above most men, even Christian
men?--faultless in his business transactions, blameless in his life? She
attempted to speak, and yet felt that she did not know what to say.
Apparently he expected no word from her; for he went on hurriedly:

"You have, during these few weeks past, shown a sort of interest in me,
that I never saw manifested before. I have reason to think that you have
concluded, lately, that the most earnest desire you can have concerning
your father, is to see him a Christian man? I can conscientiously tell
you that I have felt the necessity for this experience as I never did
before; that I realize its importance, and that I want it; yet there is
something in the way, something that I must do, and confess, and abide
by for the future, that I shrink from more on your account than my own.
My child, do you want this thing enough to endure disgrace and
humiliation, and a cross, heavy and hopeless, all your life?"

"Father," she said, half rising, and looking at him with a bewildered
air, a vague doubt of his sanity, and a half fear of his presence,
creeping into her heart, "what can you possibly mean? How can disgrace,
or cross-bearing, or trouble of any sort, be connected with _you_? I
cannot understand you."

"I know you can not. You think I am talking wildly, and you are half
afraid of me; but I am perfectly sane. I wish, with all my soul, that a
certain portion of my life could be called a wild dream of a disordered
brain; but it is solemnly true. Ruth, if I come out before the world and
avow myself a Christian man, with the determination to abide by the
teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, it involves my bringing to this
house a woman who will have to be recognized as my wife, and a girl who
will have to share with you as my daughter; a woman whom you will have
to call mother, and a girl who is your sister. Are you equal to that?"

Every trace of blood left Ruth Erskine's face. Her father watched her
narrowly, with his hand touching the bell-rope; it seemed as if she must
faint; but she motioned his hand away.

"Don't ring," were the first words she said; "I am not going to faint.
Father, tell me what you mean."

The actual avowal made, and the fact established that his daughter was
able to bear it, and to still keep the story between themselves, seemed
to quiet Judge Erskine. His intense and almost uncontrollable excitement
subsided; the wild look in his eyes calmed, and, drawing a chair beside
his daughter, he began in a low steady voice to tell her the strange
story:

"Acts that involve a lifetime of trouble can be told in a few words,
Ruth. When your mother died I was almost insane with grief; I can't tell
you about that time; I was young and I was gay, and full of plans, and
aims, and intentions, in all of which she had been involved. Then came
the sudden blank, and it almost unsettled my reason. There was a young
woman boarding at the same house where I went, who was kind to me, who
befriended me in various ways, and tried to help me to endure my sorrow.
She grew to be almost necessary to my endurance of myself. After a
little I married her. I did not take this step till I found that my
friendship with her, or, rather hers with me, was compromising her in
the eyes of others. Let me hurry over it, Ruth. We lived together but a
few weeks; then I was obliged to go abroad. Away from old scenes and
associations, and plunged into business cares, I gradually recovered my
usual tone of mind. But it was not till I came home again that I
discovered what a fatal blunder I had made. That young woman had not a
single idea in common with my plans and aims in life; she was ignorant,
uncultured, and, it seemed to me, unendurable. How I ever allowed myself
to be such a fool I do not know. But up to this time, I had at least,
not been a villain. I didn't desert her, Ruth; I made a deliberate
compromise with her; she was to take her child and go away, hundreds of
miles away, where I would not be likely ever to come in contact with her
again, and I was to take your mother's child and go where I pleased. Of
course I was to support her, and I have done so ever since; that was
eighteen years ago; she is still living, and the daughter is living. I
have always been careful to keep them supplied with money; I have tried
to have done for the girl what money could do; but I have never seen
their faces since that time. Now, Ruth, you know the miserable story.
There are a hundred details that I could give you, that perhaps would
lead you to have more pity for your father, if it did not lead you to
despise him more for his weakness. It is hard to be despised by one's
child. I tell you truly, Ruth, that the bitterest of this bitterness is
the thought of you."

The proud man's lip quivered and his voice trembled, just here.

Poor Ruth Erskine! "I am willing to do _anything_," she had said to
Marion, not two hours before; and here was a thing, the possibility of
which she had never dreamed, staring her in the face, waiting to be
done, and she felt that she could not do it. Oh, why was it necessary?
"Why not let everything be as it has been?" said that wily villain
Satan, whispering in her ears. "They were false vows; they are better
broken than kept. He does not love her, though he said he did. And how
can we ever endure it, the shame, the disgrace, the horrid explanations,
our name, the _Erskine_ name, on everybody's lips, common loafers
sneering at us? And then to have the family changed; myself to be only a
back figure; a mother who is not, and never _was_ my mother, taking my
place; and the other one-- Oh, it can not be possible that we must
endure this! There must be some other way. They are doubtless contented,
why could it not remain as it is?"

As if to answer her unspoken thoughts, Judge Erskine suddenly said:

"I have canvassed the entire subject in all its bearings, you may be
sure of that. I am living a lie. I am saying my wife is dead, when a
woman to whom before God I gave that name is living; I am saying that I
have but one child, when there is another to whom I am as certainly
father as I am to you. I am leaving them, nay, obliging them, to live a
daily lie. I have assured myself to a certainty that one sin can never
be atoned for by another sin; there is but one atonement; and the Source
of all help says, 'If we _confess_ our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins; and to cleanse us from _all_ unrighteousness.' I
know there is only one way of cleansing, daughter."

"Get thee behind me, Satan." The only perfect life gave that sentence
once, not alone for Himself; thank God he has many a time since enabled
his weak children of the flesh to repeat it in triumph. The grace came
then and there to Ruth Erskine. She rose up from her chair, and going
over to her father did what she had never remembered doing in her life
before. She bent down and wound both arms around his neck and kissed
him. Her voice was low and steady:

"Father, don't let this, or anything earthly, stand between you and
Christ. You are not a sinner above all others. It is only the
interposing hand of God that has kept me from taking sinful vows upon my
lips. Let us do just what is right. Send for them to come home, and I
will try to be a daughter and a sister; and I will stand by you, and
help you in every possible way. There are harder trials than ours will
be, after all."

It was his daughter who finally and utterly broke the proud, haughty
heart. Judge Erskine bowed himself before her and sobbed like a child in
the bitterness and the humiliation of his soul.

"God bless you," he said, at last, in broken utterance. "There is an
Almighty Saviour; I need nothing more than your words to convince me of
the truth of that. If love to him can lead your heart to such
forgiveness as this, what must his forgiveness be? Ruth, you have saved
my soul; I will give up the struggle; I have tried to fight it out; I
have tried to say that I could not; for my own sake, and for my own
name, it seemed impossible. Then when I got beyond that, and felt that
for myself, if I could have rest in the love of Christ, and could feel
that he forgave me, I cared for nothing else. Then I said, 'I can not do
this, for my child's sake; I can never plunge her into this depth of sin
and shame.' Then, my daughter, there came to me a message from God, and
of all those that _could_ come to a miserable man like me, it was this:
'He that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.' Then
I saw that I must be willing even to lose your love, to make you despise
me; and that was the bitterest cup of all. But, thank God, he has spared
me this. God bless you, my daughter."

There was something almost terrible to Ruth, in seeing her cold, calm
father so moved. She had never realized what awfully solemn things
_tears_ were till she saw them on her father's cheeks, and felt them
falling hot on her head, from eyes so unused to weeping. The kisses she
gave him were very soft and clinging--full of tender, soothing touches.
Then father and daughter knelt together, and the long, long struggle
with sin and pride and _silence_ was concluded.

Do you think this was a lasting victory for Ruth Erskine? You do not
understand the power of "that old serpent, the Devil," if you can not
think how he came to her again and again in the silence of her own room,
even into the midst of her rejoicings over the newly-washed soul, even
while the joy in heaven among the angels was still ringing out over her
father, came whispering to her heart to say:

"Oh, I can't, I can't. Think of it! The Erskines! How _can_ we endure
it? Is it _possible_ that we must? Perhaps the woman would rather live
as she is."

As if _that_ had anything to do with the question of right and wrong!
The very next instant Ruth curled her lip sneeringly over her own folly.
She never forgot that night, nor how the conflict waged. She tried to
imagine herself saying "mother" to one who really had a nominal right to
the title. Not that it was an unfamiliar word to her. The old aunt who
had occupied the mother's place in the household since Ruth was a wee
creature of two years, she had learned almost from the instincts of
childhood to call "mamma." And as she grew older and was unused to any
other name for Mrs. Wheeler, the widowed aunt, she toned it into the
familiar and comfortable word "mother," and had always spoken to and of
her in that name.

Yet she knew very well how little the title meant to her. She had loved
this old lady with a sort of pitying, patronizing love, realizing even
very early in her life that she, herself, had more self-reliance, more
executive ability, in her little finger, than was spread all over the