out shopping to buy--handkerchiefs, for instance;
that seems to me a very small thing to pray about."

"Even the purchase of handkerchiefs may involve a question of
conscience, my dear Ester, as you would realize if you had seen the
wicked purchases that I have in that line; and some way I never can
feel that any thing that has to do with me is of less importance than
a tiny sparrow, and yet, you know, He looks after them."

"Abbie, do you mean to say that in every little thing that you buy you
weigh the subject, and discuss the right and wrong of it?"

"I certainly do try to find out just exactly what is right, and then
do it; and it seems to me there is no act in this world so small as to
be neither right nor wrong."

"Then," said Ester, with an impatient twitch of her dress from under
Abbie's rocker, "I don't see the use in being rich."

"Nobody is rich, Ester, only God; but I'm so glad sometimes that he
has trusted me with so much of his wealth, that I feel like praying
a prayer about that one thing--a thanksgiving. What else am I strange
about, Ester?"

"Everything," with growing impatience. "I think it was as queer in you
as possible not to go to the concert last evening with Uncle Ralph?"

"But, Ester, it was prayer-meeting evening."

"Well, suppose it was. There is prayer-meeting every week, and
there isn't this particular singer very often, and Uncle Ralph was
disappointed. I thought you believed in honoring your parents."

"You forget, dear Ester, that father said he was particularly anxious
that I should do as I thought right, and that he should not have
purchased the tickets if he had remembered the meeting. Father likes
consistency."

"Well, that is just the point. I want to know if you call it
inconsistent to leave your prayer meeting for just one evening, no
matter for what reason?"

Abbie laughed in answer. "Do you know, Ester, you wouldn't make a good
lawyer, you don't stick to the point. It isn't a great many reasons
that might be suggested that we are talking about, it is simply a
concert." Then more gravely--"I try to be very careful about this
matter. So many detentions are constantly occurring in the city,
that unless the line were very closely-drawn I should not get to
prayer-meeting at all. There are occasions, of course, when I must
be detained; but under ordinary circumstances it must be more than a
concert that detains me."

"I don't believe in making religion such a very solemn