“No,” Marion answered, gravely, “not the least danger of it, because it happens to be the fashion for ladies to die at all seasons; it is the one thing that never seems to go out.  I am heartily glad that we have one thing that remains absolute in this fashionable world.”

Eurie looked at her thoughtfully.

“Marion, one would think you were religious—­sometimes,” she said, gravely.  “You make such strange remarks.”

Marion laughed immoderately.

“You ridiculous little infidel!” she said, as soon as she could speak.  “You do not even know enough about religion to detect the difference between goodness and wickedness.  Why, that was one of my wickedest remarks, and here you are mistaking it for goodness.  My dear child, run and get your paper bag before it is time to go; or will you have my slice of ham and half this doughnut?  The bread and butter I want myself.”

The freshness and novelty of this journey wore away before the long summer afternoon began to wane; the cars were crowded and uncomfortable, and the cinders flew about in as trying a way as cinders can.

None of the girls had the least idea where they were going.  They knew, in a general way, that there must be such a place as Chautauqua Lake, as the papers that they chanced to come in contact with had been full of the delights of that region for many months; and, indeed, a young man, earnest, enthusiastic and sensible, who stopped over night at Dr. Mitchell’s, and had been a delighted guest at the Chautauqua Assembly a year before, had sown the first seeds that resulted in this trip.

He of course could tell the exact route and the necessary steps to be taken; but it had been no part of Eurie’s wisdom to ask about the journey thither; she knew how many boats were on the lake, and what kind of fish could be caught in it, but the most direct way to reach it was a minor matter.  So there they were, simply blundering along, in the belief that the railroad officials knew their business, and would get them somewhere sometime.

As the day waned, and the road became more unknown to them, and their weariness grew upon them, they fell to indulging in those stale jokes that young ladies will perpetrate when they don’t know what else to do.  As they declared, with much laughter, and many smart ways of saying it, that Chautauqua was a myth of Eurie’s brain, or that she had been the dupe of the fine young theological student who had chanced her way and that the search for paradise would come to naught, perhaps it was not all joking; for, as the hours passed and they journeyed on, hearing nothing about the place of which for the last few weeks they had thought so much, a queer feeling began to steal over them that there really was no such spot, and that they were all a set of idiots.

“I thought we should have been there by this time, and regularly established at housekeeping,” Marion said, as they picked up baskets and bundles and prepared to change cars; “and here we are making another change.  This is the third this afternoon, or is it the thirteenth? and who knows where Brocton is or what it is?  Is anybody sure that it is in this hemisphere?  Eurie, you are certain that your theological student did not cross the Atlantic in order to reach his elysium?”