The elder woman watched the eager, flushed face of the girl; and her heart throbbed with pride that this beautiful young thing belonged to her.  She smiled indulgently.

“The rector, you mean?  Why, I’ll invite him to dinner if you wish to talk with him.  It’s perfectly proper that a young girl should understand about religion.  It has a most refining influence, and the Doctor is a charming man.  I’ll invite his wife and daughter too.  They move in the best circles, and I have been meaning to ask them for a long time.  You might like to be confirmed.  Some do.  It’s a very pretty service.  I was confirmed myself when I was about your age.  My mother thought it a good thing for a girl before she went into society.  Now, just as you are a schoolgirl, is the proper time.  I’ll send for him this week.  He’ll be pleased to know you are interested in these things.  He has some kind of a young people’s club that meets on Sunday.  ‘Christian Something’ he calls it; I don’t know just what, but he talks a great deal about it, and wants every young person to join.  You might pay the dues, whatever they are, anyway.  I suppose it’s for charity.  It wouldn’t be necessary for you to attend the meetings, but it would please the Doctor.”

“Is it Christian Endeavor?” asked Elizabeth, with her eyes sparkling.

“Something like that, I believe.  Good morning, Mrs. Schuyler.  Lovely day, isn’t it? for December.  No, I haven’t been very well.  No, I haven’t been out for several weeks.  Charming service, wasn’t it?  The Doctor grows more and more brilliant, I think.  Mrs. Schuyler, this is my granddaughter, Elizabeth.  She has just come from the West to live with me and complete her education.  I want her to know your daughter.”

Elizabeth passed through the introduction as a necessary interruption to her train of thought.  As soon as they were out upon the street again she began.

“Grandmother, was God in that church?”

“Dear me, child!  What strange questions you do ask!  Why, yes, I suppose He was, in a way.  God is everywhere, they say.  Elizabeth, you had better wait until you can talk these things over with a person whose business it is.  I never understood much about such questions.  You look very nice in that shade of green, and your hat is most becoming.”

So was the question closed for the time, but not put out of the girl’s thoughts.

The Christmas time had come and passed without much notice on the part of Elizabeth, to whom it was an unfamiliar festival.  Mrs. Bailey had suggested that she select some gifts for her “relatives on her mother’s side,” as she always spoke of the Bradys; and Elizabeth had done so with alacrity, showing good sense and good taste in her choice of gifts, as well as deference to the wishes of the one to whom they were to be given.  Lizzie, it is true, was a trifle disappointed that her present was not a gold watch or a diamond ring; but on the whole she was pleased.