t unkindly smiled. Dorothy had put her arm around
her and asked her if she was sick, when she knew there was nothing the
matter with her. Even Gladys had stopped scratching with her
slate-pencil, looking at her in a way that said as plainly as words
could, "What a nervous thing you are, not to bear the scratching of a
pencil without wincing;" and as for Susan, tormenting as she had been
on other days, she had been angelic in comparison with this. After
all, she had too much good common-sense and true religious feeling to
sit upon her stool long without beneficial results. It was nearly time
for the lights to be put out before she began to see the first thing
to be done was the right one; that is always sure. Do the duty nearest
to you, then those more distant fall readily into line and are easily
met. This was, to see Miss Ashton, no matter how awkward it would be
to tell her that the thought of the prayer-meeting was first put into
her head by Miss Ashton's letter home; that before, her religious
influence had not been a thing of which she had for a moment thought,
but that now she wished to make it tell.

"I'll go at once," she said to herself. "I won't give it up because
I'm a coward. I shall not sleep a wink unless it's settled. Life is
short; death may come at any unexpected moment. I should not like to
have my Judge ask why I had not done my duty, when, perchance, I, even
I, might have been a poor, weak instrument, but still an instrument,
in saving a soul."

In this spirit Marion went to Miss Ashton's room, quite forgetting the
lateness of the hour, and knocked timidly at the door.

Miss Ashton, wearied by her day's anxieties, did not approve of these
late calls, and only answered them for fear of sickness, so it was
some time before she said, "Come in."

She was not surprised to see Marion, for Miss Palmer had already
reported her failure in the mathematical class; but she said kindly,

"What is wrong now, Marion? Have you had another letter from home?"

"No, Miss Ashton; it is--it was--I mean, I wanted to ask you if you
had any objection to my having a prayer-meeting in my room?"

"A prayer-meeting in your room?" repeated Miss Ashton. "Why do you ask
it?"

This was the question Marion had expected; but now, with Miss Ashton
looking straight in her eyes, she hesitated to answer it.

"I thought--I hoped," she blundered at last, "that I might do more
good,--might, perhaps, save Susan."

"I see," and Mi