FOR the rest of the day Ruth was in gloom; indeed, I might almost say she was in despair. In a dim, dreary sort of way, she felt that her refuge had failed her. If it really was not going to help her to read in the Bible and pray, what was she to do? Now, I do not mean that she suddenly lost faith in the Bible, or in prayer, but simply that despairing thoughts, like these, ran riot through her brain, and she gave them attention; also, she felt as though any effort to help, or any attempt to like these people—nay, even to tolerate them—was impossible. Mrs. Erskine’s good-natured coarseness of tone and speech, her horrible arrangement of words and phrases, her frequent allusions to “your pa,” in the free, careless tone which indicated a partnership of interest between them, were all so many horrors to the refined, reserved, low-voiced daughter.

“I will just shut myself into my room,” she said, pacing back and forth like a caged lion. “I will not try to associate with them; it can never be done; they can not be improved; there is no hope in that direction: there is nothing to build on. I must just take care of myself, and see to it that I do not sink to their level.”

Carrying out this plan, or, rather, allowing herself to glide along with it, she turned away with almost a shiver from her father’s question, that evening, addressed to her in a low tone, as the family were leaving the dining-room:

“Daughter, shall we try to go to prayer-meeting to-night?”

The first prayer-meeting since this invasion into their home! Ruth had not forgotten it; instead, she had been looking forward all day to that meeting, as a refuge for her storm-tossed soul. Without giving really definite thought to it, she yet felt that there, at least, would be help and comfort; and not once had it occurred to her that the new-comers must be invited to attend. She realized, now, with a throb of pain, that it was this sense of fleeing from their presence which had helped to give pleasantness to the thought of the meeting. Was it possible that “they” must be taken?

“Father, I can’t,” she said, turning and facing him with glowing face and defiant eyes. “I have tried to-day to help, and have been an awful failure. I just feel as though I could not endure it. No, I say, let us stay at home with our misery, and not parade it before a gaping world. No, I am not going to prayer-meeting to-night.”

Her father turned from her, and walked, without another word, to the library, whither, according to the new rules of the house, they went directly after tea, for prayer. Ruth could not help noticing that her father’s tall, handsome form stooped, as though he were bowed with suddenly-added years. The moment those words were spoken, she felt that she would have given worlds to have unsaid them; but to take back what has been said in haste and folly is oftentimes an impossible task. She chose the darkest corner of the library, and felt that, if she could have crouched in it, out of sight forever, it would have been happiness. Her father’s voice, as he read the psalm for the evening, was low and tremulous. He had by no means gotten used to these new duties—had not felt their comfort, nor recognized in them a help. As yet he was in the realm of hard duty. His prayer touched Ruth as no prayer had ever done before. It opened the fountains of tears. On rising from her knees, she turned quickly to the window, to hide her disturbed face, and to determine whether she should follow her father from the room, and apologizing for the hard, unhelpful words which she had spoken, say that, of course, they must go to prayer-meeting. He did not wait for her tardy resolution, but turned at once to his wife:

“Will you and Susan accompany me to our weekly meeting? I feel that we need all the help we can get, and that is one of the sources of supply.”

Susan answered promptly, and with a glad ring in her voice that he could not have failed to notice. She was so glad to hear that this was the evening for the meeting. She had been thinking about it to-day, and wondering whether it were, and whether she could go. As for the mother, she said, hesitatingly:

“Why, yes,” she supposed so. There was nothing to hinder, that she knew of. She was no great hand for going out evenings, though, to be sure, going out in a city, where the walks were good and the streets as light as day, was a different affair from blundering along in the dark, as she had been obliged to do. Susan always went to prayer-meeting; but she hadn’t never went in her life, as she knew of; but then, of course, if he wanted to go, she would go along.

It was not possible, apparently, for Mrs. Erskine to answer a question briefly. She was full of reminiscences. They went to prayer-meeting—“father and mother and daughter.” Ruth said this sentence over after they were all gone—said it as she listened to the sound of their retreating footsteps—her father, and all the mother she had ever known, and their daughter. She was left out! Her father had not given her opportunity to change her mind. He had simply said, as they passed out, “I am sorry, daughter, that you do not feel like accompanying us.” If he had but said, “Daughter, won’t you go?” she would have choked down the tears and answered, “Yes.” But she could not bring her pride, or her grief, to make this concession. She honestly did not know whether to call it pride or grief.

Bitterly sorry was she to miss the prayer-meeting. She began to feel that, even with those two present, it might have helped her. So sorry was she that, had she dared to traverse the streets alone, she would have made ready and followed. While she still stood, looking out drearily, too sad now even for tears, the bell sounded through the quiet house, and, giving little heed to it, she was presently startled by the advent of Judge Burnham.

“Thomas thought no one was in,” he said, coming toward her, after an instant’s surprised pause, “and I ventured to avail myself of your father’s cordial invitations, and come in to consult a book which he has, and I haven’t.”

It was well for Judge Burnham’s peace of mind that he had not come in expecting to see Ruth. She was in the mood to resent such an intrusion, but since it was only books that he wanted, he was welcome. She motioned toward the rows and rows of solemn-looking volumes, as she said:

“Help yourself, Judge Burnham, and make yourself as comfortable as you can. My father’s friends are always welcome to his library.”

Then Judge Burnham said a strange and unexpected word. Standing there, looking at her with those keen, grave eyes of his, thinking, apparently, not of books at all, he said:

“I wish I could help you.”

Something in the tone and something in the emphasis caused a vivid blush to spread over Ruth’s face. She commenced a haughty sentence:

“Thank you; I am sure it is kind; but—” She was about to say, “but, I do not feel in need of help.”

She was stopped by the swift realization that this was not true. She felt, in one sense, in deeper need of help than she had ever done before. Her voice faltered over the words, and finally she stopped, her eyes drooping as they were not wont to droop before others, and those traitorous tears shone in them again. The tearful mood was as foreign to her usual self as possible, and she felt afraid to trust herself to speak further. Besides, what could she say?

Judge Burnham spoke again, earnestly, respectfully:

“I hope you will forgive my intrusion of sympathy, but I do feel for you—perhaps in a way that you can hardly appreciate. There are circumstances in my own hard life that serve to make me in deep sympathy with your present trial. Besides, your father has confided in me fully, and I knew your mother. When I was a boy of fourteen she was a woman, young and beautiful and good. She helped me in a hundred of those nameless ways in which a woman can help a motherless boy. If there was any way in which I could serve her daughter it would give me sincerest pleasure to do so.”

He was so frank and sincere and grave that Ruth could hardly help being sincere also.

“I need help,” she said, raising her eyes for an instant to his, “but I do not imagine that you, or any human being, can give it me. I shall have to get a victory over my own heart before anything can help me. I am ashamed of myself, and disheartened. Things that I mean to do I utterly fail in, and things that above all others I don’t intend to do I drop into, almost of necessity, it seems to me.”

What a pity that this man, who wanted to help, had not been familiar with the old-time cry of the sin-sick soul, “For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do.” But he was not familiar with that book of the law of the human heart. Still he essayed to comfort.

“I think you are too hard on yourself. I told you that your father had made a confidant of me, and among other things he has repeatedly told me what a help and strengthener you were to him. He said that he never would have been able to carry this hard matter through but for your strong, unselfish words. It was of you he thought most, and when you were unselfish he felt that he could be.”

Ruth needed this crumb of comfort and yet it had its bitter side, and brought another rush of tears.

“He will never speak such words again,” she said, and her voice trembled. “I have failed him utterly. To-night he asked me to go to the prayer-meeting, and I refused. I said I could never go out with them anywhere, and that we ought to stay at home and hide our shame.”

And having broken through the wall of reserve to this degree poor Ruth gave way utterly, and dropped into a chair, weeping bitterly. Presently she said:

“I would give the world to be able to take it back again; but I can’t. I should have gone to the meeting to-night—there was no excuse. I have dishonored my Saviour as well as my father.”

Judge Burnham looked down at her in perplexed dismay. No definite purpose had been in his mind, beyond a very strange sympathy for her, and a desire to show it. But he did not in the least know how to deal with tears, nor with trouble which reached to so deep and solemn a place in the heart as this. He was one of those reverent, correct moralists, professing to honor the Bible as a very wise and a very good book, professing to respect religion and honor the name of God; and knowing no more about any of these subjects than that profession indicates when it goes no farther. How was he to comfort one whose bitterest tears were being shed because she had dishonored the Lord? He waited irresolute for a moment, then, as if a sudden and very brilliant thought had struck him, his face brightened.

“If that prayer-meeting would really be a source of help to you, Miss Erskine,” and he tried not to have his tone appear incredulous, though at that very moment he was occupied in wondering what it could possibly do for her, “why not reconsider your decision and attend it? I will see you safely there with pleasure, and I presume your coming would gratify your father in his present mood.”

For, to this man, the religion of his old friend Judge Erskine was simply a “mood,” which he expected to be exchanged presently for some other fancy.

Ruth looked up quickly. Was there possibly an escape from this torture of self-reproach? Was there a chance to show her father that she was bitterly ashamed of herself?

“Isn’t it too late?” she asked, and the eagerness in her voice was apparent.

“Oh, no, I should think not,” and Judge Burnham drew his watch. “I am not very well versed in the ways of these gatherings, but if it were a lecture, or concert, it is not enough past the hour to cause remark. I am quite willing to brave criticism in that respect, if you say so.”

Had Ruth been less engrossed with the affairs of her own troubled heart she would have taken in the strangeness of this offer on Judge Burnham’s part to accompany her to a prayer-meeting. Truth to tell he could have echoed Mrs. Erskine’s statement, that “she hadn’t never went in her life as she knew of.” He smiled now over the newness of his position, and yet he cared very little about it. There were matters in which Judge Burnham had moral courage enough to face the whole world. To appear in a social meeting with Judge Erskine’s daughter was one of them. As for Ruth, true to her nature, she thought nothing about it, but made ready with a speed and an eagerness that would have amazed her attendant, could he have seen her.

So it came to pass that the First Church prayer-meeting again had a sensation. The prayer-room was quite full. Since the revival there had been none of those distressing meetings composed of a handful of the most staid members of the church, but on this particular evening there were more present than usual. There were some who were not in the habit of being seen there, even of late. Shall I venture to tell the reason? The simple truth is, that Dr. Dennis and Marion Wilbur’s wedding-cards were out. As Eurie Mitchell has before told you, many things had conspired to make their change of plans advisable, and so, instead of being married in the front-room of the old western farm-house, according to Marion’s fancy, the ceremony was to take place in the First Church on the following evening, and every member of that church, young and old, large and small, had received a special invitation to be present.

Now, it is a mistake to suppose that general gossip is confined to small villages and towns, where everybody knows everybody’s business better than he knows it himself. I think the experience of others will testify to the truth of the statement that gossip runs riot everywhere. In the larger towns or cities, it runs in eddies, or circles. This clique, or this set, or this grade of society, is, to a man and woman, as deeply interested in what the particular circle are to do, or wear, or be, next, as though they lived in a place measuring three square miles. So, while there were those in this nameless city of which we write, who said, when they heard of the coming ceremony: “Dr. Dennis! Why he is pastor of the First Church, isn’t he? or is it the Central Church? Who is Marion Wilbur? does anybody know?” And while there were those who rushed to and fro through the streets of the city, passing under the shadow of the great First Church, who did not know that there was to be a wedding there, who could not tell you the name of the pastor of the church, nor even whether it had a pastor or not, and who had never heard of Marion Wilbur in their lives, and never would, till those lives were ended, though some of them brushed past her occasionally, there were undeniably those who hurried through their duties this evening, or shook off their weariness, or ennui, or deferred other engagements and made it convenient to go to the First Church prayer-meeting, for no better reasons than a curious desire to see whether Dr. Dennis would appear any different from usual on the night before his marriage, and whether Marion would be out, and whether she could look as unconscious and unconcerned as she always had, and also what she would wear! whether she would cling to that old brown dress to the very last! and whether Grace Dennis would be present, and whether she would sit with Marion as they remembered she had, several times, or where? These, and a dozen other matters of equal importance and interest, had actually contributed to the filling of the seats in the First Church chapel! Well, there are worse absorptions than even these. I am not certain that there was a disagreeable word or thought connected with these queries, and yet how sad a thing to think that the Lord of the vineyard is actually indebted to such trivialities for the ingathering of the workers in his vineyard to consult with him as to the work? Alas! alas! many of them were not workers at all, but drones.

After all, since a higher motive could not touch these people, shall we not be glad that any motive, so long as it was not actually a sinful one, brought them within the sound of prayer and praise? They were there anyway, and the service was commenced, and the hymn that followed the pastor’s prayer was being sung, when the opening door revealed to the surprised gazers the forms of Ruth Erskine and Judge Burnham! Now Judge Burnham was one who would, on no account, have exerted himself to see how Dr. Dennis would appear, or how Marion Wilbur would dress, since none of these motives moved him. The question was, What had?