“May I venture to prophesy that you have some friend here whom you would give much to feel had been drawn here by the very Spirit of God?” He spoke the words eagerly and with earnestness, but with utmost respect, and added, “If I am right I will add the name to my list for special prayer.  Do not think me rude, please.  I know how pleasant it is to feel there is a union of desire in prayer.  I have enjoyed that help often.  We do not always need to know who those are for whom we pray.  God knows them, and that is the needful thing.  Good-evening.  I am glad to have met you.  It is pleasant to have additions to our list of fellow-heirs.”

How bright his smile was as he said those words!  And how thoroughly manly and yet how strikingly childlike had been his words and his trust!  Ruth watched him as he walked rapidly away to overtake a friend who had just passed them.  Do you remember a certain gentleman, Harold Wayne by name, who had walked with them, walked especially with Ruth, down to the depot on the morning of departure, who had toyed with her fan and complained that he could not imagine what they were going to bury themselves out there for?  Ruth thought of him now, and the contrast between his lazily exquisite air and drawling words and the fresh, earnest life that glowed in this young man’s veins brought a positive quiver of disgust over her handsome face.  There was no shadow of a smile upon it now.  Instead, she felt a nameless dread.  How strange the talk had been!  To what had she committed herself by her silence and his blunders? She pray for any one!  What a queer thing that would be to do. She anxious that any one should be led by the spirit of God!  The spirit of God frightened her.  For whom would this young man pray?  Not certainly for any friend of hers; yet he would put the name of some stranger in his prayers.  He was thoroughly in earnest, and he was the sort of a man to do just what he said.  God, he had said, would understand whom he meant.  For whom would God count those prayers?  For her?  And that thought also frightened her.

“They are all lunatics, I verily believe, from the leaders to the followers,” she said in irritation, and then she wished herself at home.  During the remainder of the day she was engaged in trying to shake off the impression that the stranger had left upon her.  Go where she would, say what she might, and she really exerted herself to be brilliant and entertaining, there followed her around the memory of those great, earnest eyes when he said, “I will add the name to my list for special prayer.”  What name?  He knew hers.  He would say, doubtless, “Her friend for whom she was anxious.”  But the one to whom he prayed would know there was no such person.  What would He do with that earnest prayer?  For she knew it would be earnest.  She was not used to theological mazes, and if ever a girl was heartily glad when a day of pleasuring was over, and the boat had touched again at the Chautauqua wharf, it was Ruth Erskine.