“Well, your congregation likes to hear you preach.”

Space will not permit the recording of the number of times emphasis was given to various expressions in this conversation by the hand pressure under the shawl.

“Now,” continued he, “I can’t conceive of your not having any admirers.”

“I didn’t say admirers—­I said beaux.”

“Well, I suppose there is a difference,” he laughed.

“Of course, I have known a good many young men in my time, but those matrimonially inclined usually passed by on the other side.”

“Perhaps they knew I was coming on this side.”

“Perhaps—­There’s papa.  He looks lonesome.  We ought to be ashamed of ourselves to hide from him as we did yesterday.”

“I agree; but he’ll find us now.”

Lucy drew the father’s attention, and he found a chair near them.

“Isn’t the sea beautiful,” said Lucy, by way of beginning the conversation properly, now a third person was present.  “And what a lot of water there is!” she continued.  “What did Lincoln say about the common people?  The Lord must like them, because he made so many of them.  Well, the Lord must like water also, as He has made so much of it.”

“Water is a very necessary element in the economy of nature,” said the father.  “Like the flow of blood in the human body, so is water to this world.  As far as we know, wherever there is life there is water.”

“And that reminds me,” said Lucy eagerly, as if a new thought had come to her, “that water is also a sign of purity.  Water is used, not only to purify the body, but as a symbol to wash away the sins of the soul.  Paul, you remember, was commanded to ’arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins’.”  Lucy looked at Chester as if giving him a cue.

“In the economy of God,” said Chester, “it seems necessary that we must pass through water from one world to another.  In like manner, the gateway to the kingdom of heaven is through water.  ’Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God’ is declared by the Savior himself.”

Whether or not the father understood that this brief sermonizing was intended primarily for him, he did not show any resentment.  He listened attentively, then added: 

“Yes; water has always held an important place among nations.  Cicero tells us that Thales the Milesian asserted God formed all things from water—­Out in Utah, Chester,” said the father, turning abruptly to the young man, “you have an illustration of what water can do in the way of making the desert to blossom.”

“Yes; it is truly wonderful, what it has done out there,” agreed Chester.  Then being urged by both his father and Lucy, he told of the West and its development.  He was adroitly led to talk of Piney Ridge Cottage and the people who lived there, their home and community life, their trials, their hopes, their ideals.  Ere he was aware, Chester was again in the canyons, and crags and mountain peaks, whose wildness was akin to the wildness of the ocean.  Then when his story was told, Lucy said: