“Mother, I want God’s help.  No other will do me any good.”

“Well,” answered Mrs. Ried, after just a moment of rather awe-struck silence, “can’t you find that help any where but in that plain, common little meeting-house?  I thought people with your peculiar views believed that God was every-where.”

An expression not unlike that of a hunted deer shone for a moment in Abbie’s eyes.  Then she spoke, in tones almost despairing: 

“O mother, mother, you can not understand.”

Tone, or words, or both, vexed Mrs. Ried afresh, and she spoke with added sharpness.

“At least I can understand this much, that my daughter is very anxious to do a thing utterly unheard of in its propriety, and I am thoroughly ashamed of you.  If I were Ester I should not like to uphold you in such a singularly conspicuous parade.  Remember, you have no one now but John to depend upon as an escort.”

Ralph had remained a silent, immovable listener to this strange, sad conversation up to this moment.  Now he came suddenly forward with a quick, firm tread, and encircled Abbie’s trembling form with his arm, while with eyes and voice he addressed his mother.

“In that last proposition you are quite mistaken, my dear mother.  Abbie chances to have a brother, who considers himself honored by being permitted to accompany her any where she may choose to go.”

Mrs. Ried looked up at her tall, haughty son in unfeigned astonishment, and for an instant was silent.

“Oh,” she said at last, “if you have chosen to rank yourself on this ridiculous fanatical side, I have nothing more to say.”

As for Mr. Ried, he had long before this shadded his eyes with his hand, and was looking through half-closed fingers with mournful eyes at the sable robes and pallid face of his golden-haired darling, apparently utterly unconscious of or indifferent to the talk that was going on.

But will Ralph ever forget the little sweet smile which illumined for a moment the pure young face, as she turned confiding eyes on him?

Thenceforth there dawned a new era in Abbie’s life.  Ralph, for reasons best known to himself, chose to be released from his vacation engagements in a neighboring city, and remained closely at home.  And Abbie went as usual to her mission-class, to her Bible-class, to the teacher’s prayer-meeting, to the regular church prayer-meeting, every-where she had been wont to go, and she was always and every-where accompanied and sustained by her brother.

As for Ester, these were days of great opportunity and spiritual growth to her.

So we bridge the weeks between and reach the afternoon of a September day, bright and beautiful, as the month draws toward its closing; and Ester is sitting alone in her room in the low, easy chair by the open window, and in her lap lies an open letter, while she, with thoughtful, earnest eyes seems reading, not it, but the future, or else her own heart.  The letter is from Sadie, and she has written thus: