ng that had possibly been dear to her
mother. It was entitled _The Girl's Week-day Book_, by Mrs. Copley, and
it had been published by the Religious Tract Society, no doubt in her
mother's girlhood. The frontispiece, a steel engraving, showed a group
of girls feeding some swans by the terraced margin of an ornamental
water, and it bore the legend, "Feeding the Swans." And on the title-
page was the text: "That our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished
after the similitude of a palace. Psalm cxliv. 12." In the table of
contents were such phrases as: "One thing at a time. Darkness and Light.
Respect for Ministers. The Drowning Fly. Trifling with words of
Scripture. Goose and Swan. Delicate Health. Conscientious Regard to
Truth. Sensibility and Gentleness contrasted with Affectation. Curiosity
and Tattling. Instability of Worldly Possessions." A book representing,
for Hilda, all that was most grotesque in an age that was now definitely
finished and closed! A silly book!

During the picnic meal she had idly read extracts from it to Janet,
amusing sentences; and though the book had once been held sacred by her
who was dead, and though they were engaged in stirring the scarce-cold
ashes of a tragedy, the girls had nevertheless permitted themselves a
kindly, moderate mirth. Hilda had quoted from a conversation in it:
"Well, I would rather sit quietly round this cheerful fire, and talk
with dear mamma, than go to the grandest ball that ever was known!" and
Janet had plumply commented: "What a dreadful lie!" And then they had
both laughed openly, perhaps to relieve the spiritual tension caused by
the day's task and the surroundings. After that, Hilda had continued to
dip into the book, but silently. And Janet had imagined that Hilda was
merely bored by the monotonous absurdity of the sentiments expressed.

Janet was wrong. Hilda had read the following: "One word more. Do not
rest in your religious impressions. You have, perhaps, been the subject
of terror on account of sin; your mind has been solemnized by some event
in Providence; by an alarming fit of sickness, or the death of a
relative, or a companion.... This is indeed to be reckoned a great
mercy; but then the danger is, lest you should rest here; lest those
tears, and terrors, and resolutions, should be the only evidences on
which you venture to conclude on the safety of your immortal state. What
is your present condition?..."

Which words intimidated Hilda in spi