on serious, but deeply interesting subjects.  Signe, in common with her cousin and Mr. Janson, had religious views of her own, which were peculiar, at least to Rupert.  Nothing more than the common doctrines of the Christian denominations had Rupert ever heard.  Signe knew her Bible well, and she could find wonderful things within its lids, teachings which were new to Rupert, but which opened to him a future, a bright, glorious future, full of possibilities.  Besides, they explained to him many of the mysteries of life and answered many of its hard questions.

Thus one evening—­it was Friday, and he lingered longer on that evening—­Mr. and Mrs. Janson were visiting neighbors, and Rupert and Signe were alone.  They sat by the kitchen stove, and the blazing pine wood made a lamp unnecessary.  Signe had received a letter from home which she had translated to Rupert.  Her father had long since forgiven her.  The few dollars she sent home now and then multiplied to quite a few kroner by the time they reached Norway, and they helped the struggling family.  After old country topics had been exhausted, the conversation had drifted to religious themes, and especially to the doctrine expressed in the song “O my Father;” but they now sat silently looking into the fire.  Their chairs were not far apart, and it was an easy matter for Rupert to lay his hand over Signe’s fingers that rested on the arm of her chair and draw them closely into his big palm.

“Signe,” he said, “if we ever lived as intelligent beings in a pre-existent state—­and I now can not doubt it,—­we two knew each other there.  Perhaps we were the closest friends, and I have just been letting my imagination run wild in contemplating the possibilities.”

“Let me tell you someting—­thing.  Did I get tha-at right?”

“You get the th as well as I, and the w’s trouble you no more.”

“Only sometimes I forget, I was going to say, you remember the first night you came here?”

“I certainly do;” and he pressed her fingers a little closer.

“Well, I seemed to know you from the first.  Though you looked bad and like a tramp, I knew you were not, and I felt as if I had known you before.”

They were silent again, “reading life’s meaning in each other’s eyes.”

Signe filled the stove from the box beside it.

“You remember that book you gave me to read the other day, Signe?”

“Yes; what do you think of it?”

“I have been thinking considerably about it.  It sets forth gospel doctrine altogether different from what I have ever heard; still it agrees perfectly with what Christ and His disciples taught.  You know, I have always been taught that man is a kind of passive being, as regards the salvation of his soul; that everything has been done for him; that, in fact, it would be the basest presumption on his part to attempt to do anything for himself; that man is without free agency in the matter; that he is simply as a lump of clay, and with little more intelligence or active powers.”