it their
feet, it could not have made a much more startled company than the
tract-tacker left behind him. A tract!--actually tacked up on the
wall, and waiting for some human voice to give it utterance! A tract
in a railroad depot! How queer! how singular! how almost improper!
Why? Oh, Ester didn't know; it was so unusual. Yes; but then that
didn't make it improper. No; but--then, she--it--Well, it was
fanatical. Oh yes, that was it. She knew it was improper in some way.
It was strange that that very convenient word should have escaped her
for a little. This talk Ester held hurriedly with her conscience. It
was asleep, you know; but just then it nestled as in a dream, and gave
her a little prick; but that industrious, important word, "fanatical,"
lulled it back to its rest. Meantime there hung the tract, and
fluttered a little in the summer air, as the door opened and closed.
Was no one to give it voice? "I'd like dreadful well to hear it," an
old lady said, nodding her gray head toward the little leaf on the
wall; "but I've packed up my specs, and might just as well have no
eyes at all, as far as readin' goes, when I haven't got my specs
on. There's some young eyes round here though, one would think." she
added, looking inquiringly around. "You won't need glasses, I should
say now, for a spell of years!"

This remark, or hint, or inquiry, was directed squarely at Ester, and
received no other answer than a shrug of the shoulder and an impatient
tapping of her heels on the bare floor. Under her breath Ester
muttered, "Disagreeable old woman!"

The brown silk rustled, and the blue ribbons fluttered restlessly for
a minute; then their owner's clear voice suddenly broke the silence:
"I'll read it for you, ma'am, if you really would like to hear it."

The wrinkled, homely, happy old face broke into a beaming smile, as
she turned toward the pink-cheeked, blue-eyed maiden. "That I would,"
she answered, heartily, "dreadful well. I ain't heard nothing good,
'pears to me, since I started; and I've come two hundred miles. It
seems as if it might kind of lift me up, and rest me like, to hear
something real good again."

With the flush on her face a little hightened, the young girl promptly
crossed to where the tract hung; and a strange stillness settled over
the listeners as her clear voice sounded distinctly down the long
room. This was what she read.

SOLEMN QUESTIONS.

"Dear Friend: Are you a Christian? What have you do