ding?" says the woman, dropping her underlip.

"A missionary from one of the first societies in the world," says I,
with becoming dignity.

The woman with the sugar-scoop bonnet looked at the man with spectacles,
and the man with spectacles looked at the woman with the sugar-scoop
bonnet. Before they could begin again I bowed my head with a lofty and
dignified air, and walked away; which, I take it, was something of a
rebuke to people whose religious zeal runs ahead of their good breeding.

I have left that camp-ground and descended a hundred or two feet nearer
the earth again, without feeling the worse or very much the better for
it. The path of duty is sometimes awful steep. I found this precipitous
to a wonderful extent. I really think nothing but the saving grace of
church-membership kept me from the anxious-seat; but the opportunities
of a new birth are not unlimited, and when one is folded and tethered
among the lambs, there is a little awkwardness when you are exhorted to
have it all done over again by a new minister and another church.
Fortified with a certificate of church membership, I passed through the
whirlwind and storm of this camp-meeting, with that graceful dignity
which has won the high post you have kindly imposed on me.

True, sisters, the pressure brought to bear upon me was long, strong,
and persistent. A fierce raid was instituted against my back hair and
the soft puffings of my frizzes in front. My white hat was a terrible
source of trouble to those who want regeneration in nothing but
religion; and the feather seemed to get more notice than the preaching
did wherever I happened to take it.

LXXXVII.

THAT OVATION OF FIRE.

Sisters:--I give you this little dash of camp-meeting, because I wish to
level myself gradually and gracefully down to the gay sinfulness of Long
Branch again, where the salt air is revivifying, and our return is a
source of complimentary jubilation at this no-end of a hotel. We came
here in the ten o'clock boat--that floating mansion-house, which Mr.
James Fisk left as a memorial of the public good a splendid sinner can
do when he is active and oriental in his taste.

I am used to these things now; but it was gratifying as we drove up in
Dempster's carriage from the railway to hear a glorious burst of music
swell out from a round summer-house on the lawn. A serenade of that kind
was what I had not expected, and my heart swelled with not unworthy
triumph when