“What wonderful lesson can it be that is so fearfully important?” she muttered, as she plunged recklessly into the mud and made her way in all haste up the hill without attempting any more tents.  “Who ever heard such an ado made about a Sunday-school lesson?  These people all act as though there was nothing of any consequence anywhere but Sunday-schools.  I guess it is the first time that such a furor was ever gotten up over teaching a dozen verses to a parcel of children.  I wonder if the people at home ever make such a uproar about the lesson?  I know some teachers who own up, on the way to church, that they don’t know where the lesson is.  This must be a peculiar one.  I wonder how I shall contrive to discover where it is?  The girls won’t know, of course.  With all their boasted going to meeting they know no more about lessons than I do myself.  I would really like to find out.  I mean to ask the next person I meet.  It will be in accordance with the fashion of the place.  Think of my walking down Broadway of a sunny morning and stopping a stranger with the query, ’Will you tell me where the lesson is, please?’” And at this point Eurie burst into a laugh over the absurdity of the picture she had conjured.

“But this is not Broadway,” she said a moment afterward, “and I mean to try it.  Here comes a man who looks as if he ought to know everything.  I wonder who he is?  I’ve seen his face a dozen times since I have been here.  He led the singing yesterday.  Perhaps he knows nothing but sing.  They are not apt to; but his face looks as though he might have a few other ideas.  Anyway, I’ll try him, and if he knows nothing about it, he will go away with a confused impression that I am a very virtuous young lady, and that he ought to have known all about it; and who knows what good seed may be sown by my own wicked hand?”

Whereupon she halted before the gentleman who was going with rapid strides down the hill, and said, in her clearest and most respectful tone: 

“Will you be so kind as to tell me where the lesson for next Sabbath commences?  I have forgotten just where it is.”

There was no hesitation, no query in his face as to what she was talking about, or uncertainty as to the answer.

“It is the fifth chapter, from the fifth to the fifteenth verse,” he said, glibly.  “All fives, you see.  Easy to remember.  It is a grand lesson.  Hard to teach, though, because it is all there.  Are you a teacher for next Sunday?  You must come to the teachers’ meeting to-morrow morning; you will get good help there.  Glorious meeting, isn’t it?  I’m so glad you are enjoying it.”  And away he went.

Every trace of ill-humor had vanished from Eurie’s face.  Instead, it was twinkling with laughter.

“The fifth chapter and fifteenth verse” of what?  Certainly she had no more idea than the birds had who twittered above her head.  How entirely certain he had been that of course she knew the general locality of the lesson. She a teacher and coming to the teachers’ meeting for enlightenment as to how to teach the lesson!