“Ruth keeps on the even tenor of her way.  It would take an earthquake to move that girl.

“I have had the greatest fun this morning.  I have been mistaken for a Sabbath-school teacher who had the misfortune to forget at what verse her lesson commenced!  You see I was cultivating new acquaintances, and a Prof.  Sherwin gave me good advice.  That and some other things aroused my curiosity concerning that same lesson, and I am going to find out where it is.

“Did you know that Sunday-school lessons were such remarkable affairs?  The one for next Sunday must comprise the most wonderful portion of Scripture that there is, for hundreds of people on these grounds are talking about it, and I stumbled upon a party of ladies this morning who were actually praying over it!

“Another thing I overheard this morning, which is news to me, that all the world was at work on the same lesson.  That is rather fascinating, isn’t it, to think of so many hundreds and thousands of people all pitching into the same verses on Sunday morning?  It is quite sentimental, too, or capable of being made so, for instance, by a great stretch of your imagination.  Suppose you and me to be very dear friends, separated by miles of ocean we will say, and both devoted Sabbath-school teachers, isn’t that a stretch now?  Such being the astonishing case, wouldn’t it be pleasant to be at work on the same lesson?  Don’t you see?  Lets play do it.  You look up the lesson for next Sabbath and so will I. Won’t that have all the charm of novelty?  Then give me the benefit of your ideas acquired on that important subject, and I’ll do the same to you.  Really, the more I think of it the more the plan delights me.  I wonder how you will carry it out?  Shall you go to Sunday-school?  What will the dear Doctor say if he sees you walk into his Bible-class?  I really wish I were there to enjoy the sensation.  Meantime I’m going to look up an altogether wonderful teacher for myself, and then for comparing notes.  My spirits begin to rise, they have been rather damp all the morning, but I see fun in the distance.

“We are to have a sensation this afternoon in the shape of a troupe of singers called the Tennesseeans—­negroes, you know, and they are to give slave-cabin songs and the like.  I expect to enjoy it thoroughly, but you ought to see Ruth curl her aristocratic nose at the thought.

“’Such a vulgar idea! and altogether inappropriate to the occasion.  She likes to see things in keeping.  If it is a religious gathering let them keep it such, and not introduce negro minstrels for the sake of calling a low crowd together, and making a little more money.’

“Marion, too, shoots arrows from her sharp tongue at it, but she rather enjoys the idea, just as she does every other thing that she chooses to call inconsistent when she happens to be the one to discover it; but woe to the one who comments on it further than she chooses to go.