or that matter, and moved with a brisker, more
business-like step back to the hotel, and someway felt an inch taller,
for was he not to have a new letter and a figure every evening, and did
he not know how to make two t's?

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII.

WHICH SHALL PROSPER, THIS OR THAT?

The Rev. John Birge stood before the window in his cosy little study,
and drummed disconsolately and dismally on the pane. Without there was a
genuine carnival among the elements, a mingling of snow and rain, which
became ice almost as it fell, and about which a regular northeast wind
was blustering. The Rev. John looked, and drummed, and knitted his
brows, and finally turned abruptly to little Mrs. John, who sat in the
smallest rocking-chair, toasting her feet on the hearth.

"Now, Emma, isn't it strange that of all the evenings in the week
Thursday should be the one so constantly stormy? This is the third one
in succession that has been so unpleasant that very few could get out."

This sentence was delivered in a half-impatient, half-desponding tone;
and Mrs. John took time to consider before she answered, soothingly:

"Well, you will have the satisfaction of feeling that those who come out
this evening love the prayer-meeting enough to brave even such a storm
as this, and of remembering that there are many others who would brave
it if they dared."

But the minister was not to be beguiled into comfort; he gave an
impatient kick to an envelope that lay at his feet, and continued his
story.

"I haven't a _thing_ prepared suitable for such an evening as this. My
intention was to have a short, practical, personal talk, addressed
almost entirely to the unconverted; and I shall have Deacon Toles and
Deacon Fanning, and a few other gray-haired saints, who don't need a
word of it, to listen to me. I had in mind just the persons that I hoped
to reach by this evening's service, and that makes it all the more
discouraging to feel almost absolutely certain that not one of them will
be out to-night. I certainly do not see why it is that the one evening
of the week, which as Christians we try to give to God, should be so
often given up to storm."

Mrs. John could not see her husband's face this time, it had been turned
again to the window pane; but there was that in the tone of his voice
which made her change her tactics.

"It _is_ a pity and a shame," she said, in demure gravity, "that
Thursday evening of all others should