“Abbie, do you mean to say that in every little thing that you buy you weigh the subject, and discuss the right and wrong of it?”

“I certainly do try to find out just exactly what is right, and then do it; and it seems to me there is no act in this world so small as to be neither right nor wrong.”

“Then,” said Ester, with an impatient twitch of her dress from under Abbie’s rocker, “I don’t see the use in being rich.”

“Nobody is rich, Ester, only God; but I’m so glad sometimes that he has trusted me with so much of his wealth, that I feel like praying a prayer about that one thing—­a thanksgiving.  What else am I strange about, Ester?”

“Everything,” with growing impatience.  “I think it was as queer in you as possible not to go to the concert last evening with Uncle Ralph?”

“But, Ester, it was prayer-meeting evening.”

“Well, suppose it was.  There is prayer-meeting every week, and there isn’t this particular singer very often, and Uncle Ralph was disappointed.  I thought you believed in honoring your parents.”

“You forget, dear Ester, that father said he was particularly anxious that I should do as I thought right, and that he should not have purchased the tickets if he had remembered the meeting.  Father likes consistency.”

“Well, that is just the point.  I want to know if you call it inconsistent to leave your prayer meeting for just one evening, no matter for what reason?”

Abbie laughed in answer.  “Do you know, Ester, you wouldn’t make a good lawyer, you don’t stick to the point.  It isn’t a great many reasons that might be suggested that we are talking about, it is simply a concert.”  Then more gravely—­“I try to be very careful about this matter.  So many detentions are constantly occurring in the city, that unless the line were very closely-drawn I should not get to prayer-meeting at all.  There are occasions, of course, when I must be detained; but under ordinary circumstances it must be more than a concert that detains me.”

“I don’t believe in making religion such a very solemn matter as that all amounts to; it has a tendency to drive people away from it.”

The look on Abbie’s face, in answer to this testily spoken sentence, was a mixture of bewilderment and pain.

“I don’t understand”—­she said at length—­“How is that a solemn matter?  If we really expect to meet our Savior at a prayer-meeting, isn’t it a delightful thought?  I am very happy when I can go to the place of prayer.”

Ester’s voice savored decidedly of the one which she was wont to use in her very worst moods in that long dining-room at home.

“Of course I should have remembered that Mr. Foster would be at the prayer-meeting, and not at the concert; that was reason enough for your enjoyment.”

The rich blood surged in waves over Abbie’s face during this rude address; but she said not a single word in answer.  After a little silence, she spoke in a voice that trembled with feeling.