It was the music-teacher who asked this question, as she waited in the music-room for recess to close, and her work to begin. Around the stove gathered the usual group of girls, talking eagerly. An absorbing topic had been opened before them, one with unending resources. Ruth Jennings had had unprecedented success, the Saturday before, disposing of pie-lifters. She was detailing some of her curious experiences. Also she had received an order for a certain kind of egg-beater, the like of which had never been seen in South Plains. She had duly reported the mysteriously-described thing to Miss Benedict, who had at once recognized it, and sent her order out by the morning mail—not for one, but two dozen. Why should not other families in South Plains beat eggs in comfort? It was strange that she had not thought of those nice little egg-beaters.

This and a dozen other matters of interest were being repeated and discussed, the lady at the piano being constantly appealed to for information, or to confirm some surprising statement. During a momentary lull in the talk, she asked her question.

Ruth Jennings answered:

"Oh, the Ansted girls! Why, Miss Benedict, is it possible that you have not discovered that they belong to a higher sphere? Dear me! They have nothing to do with South Plains, except to tolerate it during a few months of the summer because the old homestead is here, and they can't very well move it to the city. They live in that lovely place at the top of Curve Hill. You have been up there, haven't you? It is the only really lovely spot in South Plains. In summer their grounds are just elegant!"

Yes, Miss Benedict had been in that direction, and every other. She rested herself, body and soul, by long, brisk, lonely walks. She had noticed the place and wondered over it, and had meant to ask its history. So unlike every other spot in the withered village. Great broad fields stretching into the distance; handsome iron fence, with massive gate-posts, guarded by fierce-looking dogs in iron; a trellised arbor, the outline of a croquet-ground; a hint of wide-spreading, carefully kept lawns, showing between patches of the snow; a summerhouse that in the season of vines and blossoms must be lovely; a circle that suggested an artificial pond, centred with a fountain, where she could imagine the water playing rainbows with the sunshine in the long summer days.

And in short, there were all about this place very unmistakable tokens of the sort of refinement which is only to be secured by a full purse and an abundance of elegant leisure on the part of some one whose tastes are cultured to the highest degree. Shrouded in the snows of midwinter, with a shut-up look about the large, old-fashioned, roomy house, kept in a state of perfect repair, yet kept carefully for what it was, a country home, the place was marked and exceptional.

It spoke a language that could be found nowhere else, in the village or out of it for miles around. Miss Benedict had looked upon it with loving eyes. It spoke to her of the world from which she had come away; of the sort of life which had always heretofore been hers. It did not look elegant to her, except by contrast with the surrounding shabbiness. She had been used to much greater elegance. It simply said "home" to her sad heart; and only the Saturday before, she had wondered whose home it was, and why she never saw people who seemed to match it, and when it would be opened again for residence, and whether she should ever get a chance to visit that lovely greenhouse, all aglow even now.

It came to her as a surprise that it really was the home of two of her pupils.

"Do you mean that the Ansteds live there?" she questioned. "Where is the family? and why are the girls here?"

"Oh, the family are everywhere. They scatter in the winter like the birds. Go South, you know, or West, or wherever suits their royal fancy. They have no home but this, because they can not make up their minds where to settle down for one, so they board all over the world. Do business in the city, live in South Plains, and stay in Europe; that is about their history."

"And the girls remain here while their parents are away?"

"Part of the time, yes'm. Mrs. Ansted was a schoolmate of Mrs. Foster, I have heard, and respects her very highly, and would prefer having the girls with her to sending them anywhere else. Mr. Ansted is a merchant in the city. In the summer he comes out home every night, and some of them stay in town with him a great deal. It is only ten miles away, you know. If they did not charge so dreadfully on the new railroad, we might get a chance to look at its splendors once in a while ourselves; but the Ansteds don't care for high prices. Mr. Ansted is one of the directors, and I suppose they ride for nothing, just because they could afford to pay eighty cents a day as well as not. That seems to be the way things work."

"But the family attend this church, of course, while they are here. I should think the girls would be interested to join us."

"Oh, no, ma'am; indeed, they don't. They haven't been inside the church six times in as many years. They go to town."

"Not to church!"

"Yes'm; they do. Every pleasant day their carriage rolls by our house about half-past eight, and makes me feel cross and envious all day."

"But do you really mean that they habitually go ten miles to church each Sabbath, when there is one right at their doors that they might attend? What denomination are they?"

"The very same as our own," the girl said, laughing over Miss Benedict's astonished face.

Then the gentle Nettie added her explanation:

"Well, but, girls, you know they don't really go ten miles. There is an elegant church, Miss Benedict, just about seven, or maybe almost eight, miles from here. It was built by wealthy people who live out there in the suburbs, and it is said to be the prettiest church in town, and the Ansteds go to that."

"But eight miles every Sabbath, and return, must make a busy and wearying day of the Sabbath, I should think, when there is no occasion. How came they to fall into the habit of going so far?"

"Why, they did not use to spend their summers here; only a few weeks during August. They had a house in town, and then Mrs. Ansted was sick, and the doctors said she could not live in the city, and they had a little delicate baby, who they said would die unless they kept it in the country. So, they sold their town house, and came out here to stay until they decided what to do, and then the railroad was built, and Mr. Ansted found it easy enough to get back and forth to his business, and the baby began to grow strong, and they spent a great deal of money on the place, and grew to liking it, and they just stay on. They keep rooms in town, and are there a great deal, but they really live in South Plains."

"And drive to church every Sabbath!"

"Well, every Sabbath when it is pleasant. They are not very regular. When it is too warm to go, they lounge under the trees, and when it is too rainy they lounge in their handsome house, I suppose. At any rate, they don't appear in our church. We don't see much more of them when they are at home than when they are in Europe, only riding by."

"And do the girls like to be here at school while the family is away?"

"Well, that is a new thing, you see. Mrs. Foster has only been here since September. Before that, they never looked at our school; but directly they heard she was coming, the Ansted girls came in, and are to board here until the family come back from Florida. We never any of us spoke to Fannie and Ella Ansted in our lives until they appeared here in October."

Then Mary Burton spoke:

"And we shall not get a chance to speak with their highnesses much longer. The Ansteds are coming home in two weeks. Lilian, that's the baby, has had a low fever, and the doctors have decided that she needs to come home and get braced up, and the house is being aired for their coming. Ella Ansted told me this morning. She says she and Fannie will only be here at recitations after next week or week after. She doesn't know just when the folks will get here, they are going to stop in New York."

"Girls," said the music-teacher in her most resolute tone, "let us get the Ansted girls into our circle, and set them at work for the church."

But this met with eager demurs. The Ansteds held themselves aloof from South Plains. They never made calls among the people, or invited them to their home, or noticed them in any way. They had nothing to do with the poor little church; never came to the prayer meetings, nor to the socials, nor in any way indicated that they belonged to the same flesh and blood as the worshipers there, and South Plains held its head too high and thought too much of itself to run after them. The girls were well enough, Fannie and Ella, and they had been pleasant to them; but as for stooping to coax them to help, they did not feel that they could do it, even for Miss Benedict.

"I don't want you to stoop," declared Miss Benedict, "nor to coax. I want you to give them a good hearty invitation to join us. Poor things! I am just as sorry for them as I can be! Eight miles away from their church and all church friends; no prayer meeting to attend, and no pastor to interest himself in all they do! I have wondered why those girls seemed so out in the cold. I begin to understand it. You think you have been cordial; but you have just edged out a little, made a tiny opening in your circle, and said in effect: 'Oh, you may come in, if you will crawl in there! We will tolerate you while you are here, if you won't expect too much, nor ask us to invite you to our special doings of any sort. You are just outsiders, and we are not going to stoop to you, and let you be one with us.'"

The girls laughed a little, but Ruth Jennings demurred. Nobody had wanted them to stay outside; they had chosen to do so. They would not attend the church, though the trustees had invited Mr. Ansted, and they never showed in any way an interest in South Plains or its people.

Miss Benedict changed her tactics:

"Girls, wait; let me ask you, are Fannie and Ella Ansted Christians?"

"Not that I ever heard of," Ruth said, and Mary Burton added that she knew they were not; that one day when they were talking about such things, Ella asked the strangest questions, almost as though she were a heathen; and Fannie did not seem to know much better.

"Well, have you made them realize that you young people belong to Christ, and that it is a pleasant way, and you would like to have them join it, and work for his cause? Ruth, my dear, do they know that you desire to have them happy in Christ, and that you pray for this every day?"

"It isn't likely they do, Miss Benedict, for it isn't true. I never thought about them twice in my life in that connection, and I know I never prayed for them."

"And are there any of you who can give a better record than that?" She looked around upon the silenced group, and waited in vain for an answer. At last she said, gently:

"Now, girls, there are only two questions more that I want to ask you. One is: Which is it that stands aloof, and makes no effort to help others, you or the Ansted girls, if you know Christ and they do not? And the other is: Will you all agree to invite them to join us, and do it heartily?"

The pealing bell cut short an answer, if one had been intended. Miss Benedict was glad. She wanted no answer just then; she had planted her little seed, and hoped that it would take root and grow.

"She has a way of taking things for granted," said one of the group which moved out of the music-room, leaving Nettie to take her lesson. "How does she know that any of us are Christians?"

There was a moment's silence, then Mary Burton asked:

"Do you really suppose there is no difference between us and others? Can't we be told in any way?"

"I'm sure I don't know how. There hasn't been a communion service since she came here, and we don't any of us go to prayer meeting. They say she does. Father said she sat in one corner of that dark old church the other night; the first woman there, and not many came afterward."

Said Mary Burton:

"I wonder what it means, any way, to come out from among them and be separate? I came across that verse in my reading the other night, and I wondered, then, just what it meant. We girls are certainly not any more 'separate' since we joined the church than we were before, so far as I know; and yet the verse some way made me think of Miss Benedict; she seems different from other Christians. I should like to know just what made the difference?"

"She is 'gooder,'" said Ruth Jennings, laughing a little, "that is just the whole of it; but I wish she hadn't started out on this idea about the Ansteds. They won't join us, and I don't want to feel myself humiliated by asking them."

But Nettie, usually easy to be turned aside, held persistently to the thought which troubled her.

"I know she is 'gooder,' that is what I say; but ought not we to be the same? Ought the boys and girls with whom we five spend so much time, to feel that we just belong to their set, and are in no sense different from them? We are all the church-members there are among the young people, you know. When I told Miss Benedict that the other day, she looked astonished for a minute, and then she said: 'You dear girls, what a work you have to do!' But I don't feel as though we were doing it, and I, for one, don't know how; but I wish I did."

There was no answer to that. The little seed was taking root, though not in the way that the planter had planned.