ncamp youth. He exchanged a pleasant greeting
with every one, and brought the largest young tree of all up the hill on
his broad shoulders.

When, at length, the Wallencampers had permitted the fire to burn low,
they joined hands in a ring around the embers, and sang the saddest and
sweetest songs in the Hymnal. I sat on a rock near by, engaged as I had
been much of the time since my arrival in Wallencamp, in trying to
realize the situation--the awful gloom of the night, the river now
invisible, below, the sound of the surf farther off, that made my heart
sick, and with it the strange mingling of those religious songs, the
lonely hill, the smouldering fire, the fantastic group gathered around.

When I got back to the Ark, I found Rebecca waiting for me. She followed
me up to my room, and I closed the door.

"You see I waited long enough for you to come of your own accord," I
said, laughing. Then I drew a chair in front of her. She sat at the foot
of the bed, and I addressed her gravely:--

"Now, Becky, something is the matter. You are not the merry,
light-hearted girl you were when I first knew you. And I can help you,
perhaps. I will help you. Tell me what the trouble is!"

I thought I should see the tears gathering in Rebecca's eyes, but she
looked, instead, so stonily disconsolate, that I was rather dismayed.

"I'm going to tell you," said she; "but you can't help me. They'll all
know before long, I guess. I don't care. You talk good, but you don't say
much about God. I guess you don't believe there is none. I don't, I can't
understand. I'm like I'd got lost, somehow, and when they found me,
they'd stone me--I don't care. I've felt enough. I don't feel no more.
I've cried so much, I guess I can't cry no more. If I could it 'ud be
now, tellin' you.

"When Miss Waite came here to teach, I hadn't ever had no friend except
the girls here, and they wasn't bad, but we was always runnin' wild
around in the lots, and down to shore, and always laughin' and plaguin'
the teacher in school. And when Miss Waite came, she wasn't like you, nor
she didn't have such clothes, nor such ways as yours. I didn't love her
very much, but she used to talk to me, and wanted me to be a Christian.
And she didn't tell me all it was to be a Christian like you have, or I
wouldn't 'a' been such a fool to think I could be; but she talked like it
wasn't anything to understand, only to want Christ in your heart, and try
to be good, and, first,