d her again.

"No, I will not go," she said to herself. The words had been conned in
her fit of rudeness to Sophia Rexford that day, but now they had a wider
meaning.

All sweet influences sent out from Heaven to plead with human hearts
withdrew for the time, for--such an awful thing is life--we have power
to repulse God.

CHAPTER XVI.

Robert Trenholme was still obliged to rest his sprained ankle, and was
not yet going out, but an opportunity was afforded him of meeting his
friendly neighbours, at least the feminine portion of them, in company,
sooner than he anticipated.

The day before the college reassembled it happened that the
sewing-circle connected with the church met at Mrs. Rexford's house. The
weather was unusually warm for the season; the workers still preferred
to sit out of doors, and the grass under the tree at the front of the
house was their place of meeting. About a dozen were there, among whom
Mrs. and Miss Bennett were conspicuous, when Mrs. Brown and her daughter
drove up, a little belated, but full of an interesting project.

"Oh, Mrs. Rexford," they cried, "we have just thought of such a charming
plan! Why not send our carriage on to the college, and beg Principal
Trenholme to drive back here and sit an hour or two with us? It's so
near that, now he is so much better, the motion cannot hurt him; this
charming air and the change cannot fail to do him good, so confined as
he has been, and we shall all work with the more zeal in his presence."

The plan was approved by all. If there were others there who, with
Sophia Rexford, doubted whether greater zeal with the needle would be
the result of this addition to their party, they made no objections.
They could not but feel that it would be a good thing for the invalid's
solitude to be thus broken in upon, for, for some reason or other,
Trenholme had been in solitude lately; he had neither invited visitors
nor embraced such opportunity as he had of driving out.

Trenholme answered this invitation in person. The motherly members of
the party attended him at the carriage door when he drove up, and, with
almost affectionate kindness, conducted his limping steps to a reclining
chair that had been provided. His crutch, and a certain pensive pallor
on his countenance, certainly added to his attractions. Even Sophia
Rexford was almost humble in the attentions she offered him, and the
other maidens were demonstrative. In spite of such protestati