nd have it say nothing about Christ and
heaven and the Christian life? Surely she could not be a teacher
without teaching of these things. _Must_ she teach them incidentally?
Was saying nothing about them speaking against them? Dr. Walden more
than intimated this.

"After all," she said, speaking to Ruth as the address closed, "I don't
think I shall commence my book yet."

"Why?"

"Oh, because I am sacred." Then, impatiently, after a moment's silence,
during which they changed their seats, "I'm disgusted with Chautauqua!
It is going to spoil me. I feel my ambition oozing out at the ends of my
toes, instead of my fingers as I had designed. Everybody is so awfully
solemn, and has so much to say about eternity, it seems we can't whisper
to each other without starting something that doesn't even end in
eternity. But, wasn't he logical and eloquent?"

"I don't know," Ruth said, absently. And she wondered if Marion knew how
true her words were. Ruth had heard scarcely a word of Dr. Walden's
address since that last whisper, "So you are destined to immortality,
remember." Words spoken in jest, and yet thrilling her through and
through with a solemn meaning. She had always known and always believed
this. She was no skeptic, yet her heart had never taken it in, with a
great throb of anxiety, as it did at that moment. _Was_ she being led of
the Spirit of God?

The two merely changed their positions and looked about them a little,
and then prepared to give attention to the next entertainment, which was
a story from Emily Huntington Miller. Marion was the only one who was in
the least familiar with her, she being the only one who had felt that
absorbing interest in juvenile literature that had led her to keep pace
with the times.

"I'm disposed to listen to _her_ with all due respect and attention,"
she said, as she rearranged herself and got out her note-book. "She is
one of the few people who seem not to have bidden a solemn farewell to
their common sense when they set out to entertain the children. I have
read everything she ever wrote, and liked it, too. I set out to make an
idol of her in my more juvenile days. I used to think that the height of
my ambition would be attained if I could have a long look at her. I'm
going to try it to-day, and see if it satisfies me; though we are such
aspiring and unsatisfied creatures that I strongly suspect I shall go on
reaching out for something else even after _this_ experience."