To stand up for Jesus always and everywhere.

5. To try to save at least one soul each year.

6. To engage in no amusement where my Savior could not be a guest.

Had the small bit of card-board been a coal of fire it could not have
been more suddenly dropped upon the marble before her than was this,
as Ester's startled eyes took in its meaning. Who could have written
those sentences? and to be placed there in a conspicuous corner of a
fashionable store? Was she never to be at peace again? Had the world
gone wild? Was this an emanation from Cousin Abbie's brain, or were
there many more Cousin Abbies in what she had supposed was a wicked
city, or--oh painful question, which came back hourly nowadays, and
seemed fairly to chill her blood--was this religion, and had she none
of it? Was her profession a mockery, her life a miserably acted lie?

"Is that thing hot?" It was Ralph's amused voice which asked this
question close beside her.

"What? Where?" And Ester turned in dire confusion.

"Why that bit of paper--or is it a ghostly communication from the
world of spirits? You look startled enough for me to suppose anything,
and it spun away from your grasp very suddenly. Oh," he added, as he
glanced it through, "rather ghostly, I must confess, or would be if
one were inclined that way; but I imagined your nerves were stronger.
Did the pronoun startle you?"

"How?"

"Why I thought perhaps you considered yourself committed to all this
solemnity before your time, or willy-nilly, as the children say. What
a comical idea to hang one's self up in a store in this fashion. I
must have one of these. Are you going to keep yours?" And as he spoke
he reached forward and possessed himself of one of the cards. "Rather
odd things to be found in our possession, wouldn't they be? Abbie now
would be just one of this sort."

That cold shiver trembled again through Ester's frame as she listened.
Clearly he did not reckon her one of "that sort." He had known her but
one day, and yet he seemed positive that she stood on an equal footing
with himself. Oh why was it? How did he know? Was her manner then
utterly unlike that of a Christian, so much so that this young man
saw it already, or was it that glass of wine from which she had sipped
last evening?--and at this moment she would have given much to be back
where she thought herself two weeks ago, on the wine question; but she
stood silent and let him talk on, not once attempting to defin