“What proportion of that class of people are here, do you think?” she said, at last.  “Are not the most of them professing Christians?”

“Precisely the question that interests me.  I should really like to know.  I wonder if there is no way of coming at it?  We might call for a rising vote of all who loved the Lord; could we not?  Wouldn’t it be a beautiful sight?—­a great army standing up for him!  I incline to your opinion that the most of them are Christians, or at least a large proportion.  But I should very much like to know just how far this idea had touched the popular heart, so as to call out those who are not on the Lord’s side.”

“They would simply have come for the fun of the thing, or the novelty of it,” she said, feeling amused again that almost of necessity she was speaking of herself and using the pronoun “they.”  What would this gentleman think if he should bring about that vote of which he spoke and happen to see her among the seated ones?

“‘A wolf in sheep’s clothing’ he would suppose me to be,” she said to herself.  “But I am sure I have not told him that I belong to the ‘we’ at all.  If he chooses to assume things in that way, it is not my fault.”

Apparently he answered both her expressed sentence and her thought: 

“I do not think so,” he said, earnestly.  “I doubt if any have come simply for fun or for novelty.  There are better places in which to gratify both tastes.  I believe there is more actual interest in this subject, even among the unconverted, than many seem to think.  They are reasonable beings.  They must think, and many of them, no doubt, think to good purpose.  It may not be clear even to themselves for what they have come; But I believe in some instances, to say the least, it will prove to have been the call of the Spirit.”

Again Ruth felt herself forced to smile, not at the earnestness—­she liked that, but there was her party, and she rapidly reviewed them—­Marion, with her calm, composed, skeptical views, indifferent alike to the Christian or unchristian way of doing things; Eurie, who lived and breathed for the purpose of having what in wild moments she called “a high time;” Flossy with her dainty wardrobe, and her dainty ways, and her indifference to everything that demanded thought or care.  Which of them had been “called by the Spirit”?  There was herself, and for the time she gave a little start.  What had she come to Chautauqua for?  After all she was the only one who seemed to be absolutely without a reason for being there.  Marion’s avowed intention had been to make some money; Eurie’s to have a free and easy time; Flossy had come as she did everything else, because “they” did.  But now, what about Ruth Erskine?  She was not wont to do as others did, unless it happened to please her.  What had been her motive?  It was strange to feel that she really did not know.  What if this strange speaking young man were right, and she had been singled out by the Spirit of God!  The thought gave her a thrill, not of pleasure, but of absolute, nervous fear.  What did she know of that gracious Spirit?  What did she know of Christ?  To her there was no beauty in him.  She desired simply to be left alone.  She was silent so long that her companion gave her a very searching review from under his heavy eyebrows, and then his face suddenly lighted as if he had solved a problem.