we do here."

I shook my head, but only answered:

"Come, cousin, we can hear the still, small voice better alone in our
tent."

She yielded, and we started to make the best of our way out of the
crowd, but five or six thousand persons swarmed around that regenerating
camp-ground, and it was some time before we got safely into our own
tent. Then I sat down by Cousin E. E., drew a deep, long breath, and
said, "Thank goodness," with all my heart.

LXXXV.

THE SECOND DAY.

Dear sisters:--I have been two days at this camp-meeting, fasting,
because I have given up the fight about something to eat, and awake all
night because the hot weather almost drove me into the anxious seat,
from dread of a hotter place.

I hope you are satisfied with the way I have been walking this straight
and narrow path of missionary duty. I wish I could say quiet path, but,
being of an honest turn of mind, I must say it is both steep and noisy.
Just at this minute a prayer-meeting and revival is going on in the next
tent to ours and the groaning and shouting is enough to drive one crazy.
The tent is crowded full of women and children, and I don't know which
jump the highest or make the most noise.

Well, I am not a wife--which you know is not my fault; neither am I a
mother, which, under the circumstances, I am grateful for; but why
little boys and girls should be brought here, and put in the way of a
second birth, puzzles me. One event of that kind ought to be enough for
any family of moderate ambition. In fact, I know of people who would do
without any, with Christian fortitude. But here we are--men, women, and
children--trying to save each other with all our might, and doing it in
a way that brings strangers together with a jerk sometimes.

Just as we were coming into the camping-ground this morning, where the
whole road was beginning to swarm again, a nice old lady, in a gray
dress, and with a little, white muslin shawl pinned over her bosom, came
up to me, and, lifting her meek eyes from under her sugar-scoop bonnet,
informed me that the Spirit was upon her. She was exercised with a sense
of duty regarding my sinful condition, which was miserably apparent in
the white feather that curlecued itself around my hat, and the cut of my
gaiter boots that had heels enough to send a dozen souls to everlasting
ruin.

I looked down at my boot, which is a scrumptious one, and said, with
thankfulness, that I couldn't see anything in th