“It was blessed to me,” the young man said, in quiet voice; and added in undertone, as if speaking to himself only:  “God was there.”

“Do you feel that?” said Flossy, suddenly.  “Then I wonder that you were not afraid.”

He turned toward her a pleasant face and said, earnestly: 

“You would not be afraid of your father, would you?  Well, God is my Father, my reconciled Father;” And then, after a moment, he added:  “It I were not at peace with him, and had reason to think that he was angry with me, then it would be different.  Then I suppose I should be afraid; at least I think it would be reasonable to be.”

Flossy spoke out of the fullness of a troubled heart: 

“I don’t understand it at all.  I never wanted to, either, until just to-night; but now I want to feel as those people did when they sang that hymn.”

Marion came quickly up from the other side.

“Flossy,” she said, with sudden sharpness, “come over here and watch the track of the boat through the water.”  And as Flossy mechanically obeyed, she added:  “What a foolish, heedless little mouse you are!  I wonder that your mother let you go from her sight.  Don’t you know that you mustn’t get up conversations with strange young men in that fashion?”

Flossy had not thought of it at all:  but now she said a little drearily, as if the subject did not interest her: 

“But I have often held conversations with strange young men at the dancing-hall, you know, and danced with them, too, when everything I knew about them was their names, and generally I forgot that.”

Marion gave a light laugh.

“That is different,” she said, letting her lip curl in the darkness over the folly of her own words.  “What its proper at a dance in very improper coming home from prayer-meeting, don’t you see?”

“What do you think!” she said the minute they were in their rooms.  “There was I, leaning meditatively over the boat, thinking solemnly on the truths I had heard, and that absurd little water-proof morsel was having a flirtation with a nice young man.  Here is one of the fruits of the system!  What on earth was he saying to you, Flossy?”

“Don’t!” said Flossy, for the second time that evening.  “He wasn’t saying any harm.”

The whole thing jarred on her with an inexpressible and to her bewildering pain.  She had always been ready for fun before.

“That girl is homesick or something,” Marion said, as she and Eurie went to their rooms, leaving Flossy with Ruth, who prefered her as a room-mate to either of the others because she could keep from talking.

“I haven’t the least idea what is the matter, but she has been as unlike herself as possible.  I hope she isn’t going to get sick and spoil our fun.  How silly we were to bring her, anyway.  The baby hasn’t life enough to see the frolic of the thing, and the intellectual is miles beyond her.  I suspect she was dreadfully bored this evening.  But, Eurie, there is going to be some splendid speaking done here.  I shouldn’t wonder if we attended a good many of the meetings.”