ne evening he happened to be alone with her for a few minutes in the
sitting-room. It was Hallowe'en, and he was waiting for Amanda to come
down from her room, where she was arraying herself for conquest at a
party in the village, to which he had been invited to escort her.
"Studying all alone?" he inquired sociably, coming to the table where
Tillie sat, and looking down upon her.
"Yes," said Tillie, raising her eyes for an instant.
"May I see!"
He bent to look at her book, pressing it open with his palm, and the
movement brought his hand in contact with hers. Tillie felt for an
instant as if she were going to swoon, so strangely delicious was the
shock.
"'Hiawatha,'" he said, all unconscious of the tempest in the little
soul apparently so close to him, yet in reality so immeasurably far
away. "Do you enjoy it?" he inquired curiously.
"Oh, yes"; then quickly she added, "I am parsing it."
"Oh!" There was a faint disappointment in his tone.
"But," she confessed, "I read it all through the first day I began to
parse it, and--and I wish I was parsing something else, because I keep
reading this instead of parsing it, and--"
"You enjoy the story and the poetry?" he questioned.
"But a body mustn't read just for pleasure," she said timidly; "but for
instruction; and this 'Hiawatha' is a temptation to me."
"What makes you think you ought not to read 'just for pleasure'?"
"That would be a vanity. And we Mennonites are loosed from the things
of the world."
"Do you never do anything just for the pleasure of it?"
"When pleasure and duty go hand in hand, then pleasure is not
displeasing to God. But Christ, you know, did not go about seeking
pleasure. And we try to follow him in all things."
"But, child, has not God made the world beautiful for our pleasure? Has
he not given us appetites and passions for our pleasure?--minds and
hearts and bodies constructed for pleasure?"
"Has he made anything for pleasure apart from usefulness?" Tillie asked
earnestly, suddenly forgetting her shyness.
"But when a thing gives pleasure it is serving the highest possible
use," he insisted. "It is blasphemous to close your nature to the
pleasures God has created for you. Blasphemous!"
"Those thoughts have come to me still," said Tillie. "But I know they
were sent to me by the Enemy."
"'The Enemy'?"
"The Enemy of our souls."
"Oh!" he nodded; then abruptly added, "Now do you know, little girl, I
wouldn't let
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