morning her heart had been in a great flutter of happiness over the beautiful day that stretched out before her.  To meet those earnest, eager people again, to hear those hymns, to hear the voice of prayer all about her, to hear the constant allusions that were so strange and so saddening to her yesterday, and that now she understood, how blessed it would be!  She had gone about the bewilderments of her toilet in a tent with a serenely happy face, and almost unawares had hummed the refrain of a tune that had already shown itself a favorite at Chautauqua.

“Flossy is like herself this morning,” Eurie said, as she heard the happy little song.  “I think she has recovered from her home-sickness.”

Tents are not convenient places in which to make private remarks.  Flossy overheard this one and smiled to herself.  Yes, she had gotten over her home-sickness—­she had found home.  She gave a little exclamation of dismay as she heard the plannings for the day, and said: 

“But, Ruth, what about the meetings?”

“Well,” Ruth had said, with her most provokingly nonchalant air, “I haven’t made any inquiry, but I presume they will continue them all day just the same as if we were here.  I don’t think they will change the programme on our account.”

And Eurie had added, mischievously: 

“Flossy is afraid it is not the aristocratic thing to do, not to stay to all the meetings.”

“Oh, as to that,” Mrs. Smithe had said (she was one of those interesting people who always take remarks seriously), “I assure you it is what the first people on the ground are doing.  Of course none of them would be so absurd as to think of attending meetings all the time.  The brain wouldn’t endure such a strain.”

“Of course not,” Marion had answered with gravity, “My brain is already very tired.  I think yours must be exhausted.”

Flossy meditated a daring resolution to stay behind and take her “rest” in the way she coveted; but the impossibility of explaining what would appear to the others as merely an ill-natured freak, and occasion no end of talk, deterred her, and with slow, reluctant steps she followed the merry group down to the wharf.

If those people had stopped long enough to think of it, this disposal of themselves would have had its ludicrous side.  Certainly it was a strange fancy to run away twenty miles with lunches done up in paper in search of a picnic, when Chautauqua was one great picnic ground, stretching out before them in beauty and convenience.  But the entire group belonged to that class of people for whom the fancy of the moment, whatever it may be, has infinite charms.

There was plenty of room on the Colonel Phillips.  Very few people were traveling in that direction.

“It is really queer,” the Captain was overheard to say, “to take a party away from the grounds at this hour of the day.”

“What an enthusiastic set of people they are about here,” Eurie said to Mr. Rawson, one of Mrs. Smithe’s party, as they paced the deck together.  “The people all talk and act as though there was nowhere to go and nothing to do but attend those meetings.  For my part it is a real relief to have a change in the programme.”