or
Missions, how glad he would have been!

Perhaps it would be better to lay all the troubles and the tangles down
in the Hand that overrules it all, and say, in peace and restfulness,
"He knoweth the end from the beginning."

CHAPTER XIII.

"CROSS PURPOSES."

When people start out with the express design of having a good time,
irrespective of other people's plans or feelings--in short, with a
general forgetfulness of the existence of others--they are very likely
to find at the close of the day that a failure has been made.

It did not take the entire day to convince Eurie Mitchell that
Chautauqua was not the synonym for absolute, unalloyed _pleasure_. You
will remember that she detached herself from her party in the early
morning, and set out to find pleasure, or, as she phrased it, "fun." She
imagined them to be interchangeable terms. She had not meant to be
deserted, but had hoped to secure Ruth for her companion, she not
having the excuse of wishing to report the meetings to call her to them.
Failing in her, in case she should have a fit of obstinacy, and choose
to attend the meetings, Eurie counted fully upon Flossy as an ally. Much
to her surprise, and no little to her chagrin, Flossy proved decidedly
the more determined of the two. No amount of coaxing--and Eurie even
descended to the employment of that weapon--had the least effect. To be
sure, Flossy presented no more powerful argument than that it did not
look well to come to the meeting and then not attend it. But she carried
her point and left the young searcher for fun with a clear field.

Now fun rarely comes for the searching; it is more likely to spring upon
one unawares. So, though Eurie walked up and down, and stared about her,
and lost herself in the labyrinths of the intersecting paths, and tore
her dress in a thicket, and caught her foot in a bog, to the great
detriment of shoe and temper, she still found not what she was searching
for. Several times she came in sight of the stand; once or twice in
sound of the speaker's voice; but having so determinately carried her
point in the morning, she did not choose to abandon her position and
appear among the listeners, though sorely tempted to do so. She wandered
into several side tents in hope of finding something to distract her
attention; but she only found that which provoked her.

In one of them a young lady and gentleman were bending eagerly over a
book and talking earnestly. They were