estioning thrill: What if such a thing were possible! Now it came
again.

She stood perfectly still, all the blood seeming to recede from and
leave her faint with the strange solemnity of the thought! What if she
had this evening been preaching the gospel to Ruth! What if the words of
hers should lead Ruth to think, and to hunt, and to find this light that
those who were not blind--if there were any such--succeeded in finding!
What if, as a result of this, she should go to heaven! and what if it
were true that there was to be a judgment, and they two should meet, and
then and there she should realize that it was because of this evening's
talk that Ruth stood in glory on the other side of the great gulf of
separation! What kind of a feeling would that be?

"Oh, if I only knew," she said aloud, sitting suddenly down on a fallen
log, "if I _only_ knew that any of these things were so! or if I could
only get to imagining that they were, I would take them up and have the
comfort out of them that some of these people seem to get, for I have so
little comfort in my life. It can not be that it is all a farce, such as
Ruth's horrid resolve would lead one to think; that is not the way that
Dr. Vincent feels about it; it is not the way that Dr. Pierce preached
about it this morning; it is not the way that man Bliss sings about it.
There is more to it than that. My father had more than that. If he could
only look down to-night and tell me whether it is so, whether he is safe
and well and perfectly happy. Oh, it seems to me if I could only be
sure, _sure_ beyond a doubt that God did give an eternal heaven to my
father, I could love him forever for doing that, even though there is a
hell and I go to it."

Within the tent they were having talk that would seem to amount to very
little. Even Eurie appeared to be subdued, and to have almost nothing to
say. Ruth was roused from the half stupor of astonishment into which
Marion's unexpected words had thrown her by hearing Flossy say, "Oh,
Ruth, I forgot to tell you something; Mrs. Smythe stopped at the door on
Saturday evening before you came home; her party leave for Saratoga
to-morrow morning, and she wanted to know whether any of us would go
with them."

"Did you tell her I was going?" Ruth asked, quickly. It was utterly
distasteful to her to think of having Mrs. Smythe's company. She did not
stop to analyze her feelings; she simply shrank from contact with Mrs.
Smythe and from othe