t all. It is unutterably stupid! I
suppose I have a right to be tired of a silly scheme that ought never to
have been undertaken, if I choose to be, have I not, without being
called in question by any one?"

And feeling more thoroughly vexed, not only with the girls, but with
herself, than ever she remembered feeling before, Ruth arose suddenly
and sought refuge under the trees outside the tent.

Marion maintained a puzzled silence. This was a new phase in Ruth's
character, and one hard to manage.

Flossy looked on the point of crying. She was not used to crossing the
wills of those who had influence over her, but she was very determined
as to one thing: she was not going to leave Chautauqua.

"Nothing could tempt me to go to Saratoga just now," she said,
earnestly.

"Why?" asked Marion, and receiving no answer at all felt that Flossy
puzzled her as much as Ruth had done. However, she set herself to work
to restore peace.

"This letter is done," she said, gayly, folding her manuscript. "It is a
perfectly gushing account of yesterday's meeting, for some of which I am
indebted to the Buffalo reporters; for I have given the most thrilling
parts where I wasn't present. Now I'm going to celebrate. Come in, Ruth,
we are of the same mind precisely. I would gladly accompany you on the
afternoon train to Saratoga with the greatest pleasure, were it not for
certain inconveniences connected with my pocket-book, and a desire to
replenish it by writing up this enterprise. But since we can't go to
Saratoga, let's you and I go to Mayville. It is a city of several
hundred inhabitants, six or eight, certainly, I should think; and we can
have an immense amount of fun out of the people and the sights this
afternoon, and escape the preaching. I haven't got to write another
letter until Monday. Come, shall we take the three o'clock boat?"

Neither of these young ladies could have told what possible object there
could be in leaving the lovely woods in which they were camped and
going off to the singularly quiet, uninteresting little village of
Mayville, except that it was, as they said, a getting away from the
preaching--though why two young ladies, with first-class modern
educations, should find it so important to get themselves away from some
of the first speakers in the country they did not stop to explain even
to themselves. However, the plan came to Ruth as a relief, and she
unhesitatingly agreed to it; so they went their ways--