s. Gray opened her eyes.

"Dear me! I lost myself for a moment," she said. Then, "Is George
gone?" she added.

"Yes, mother."

Mrs. Gray looked at the clock. "And it's time," she said with parental
duty. "You must go to bed at once, dear."

Winifred had had a happy evening, and the reflection that looked back
at her from the glass in her dressing-room was radiant. But, after
all, in the depths of her heart there was a tinge of something sad, an
unsatisfied sense of some good thing wanting. What was it that the
evening lacked? A little book upon the table suggested the answer with
a mute reproach. In all the evening's pleasure there had been no sweet
savor of Jesus Christ. Now as she took the book and tried to read her
heart beat coldly toward Him. The words did not speak to her, but
seemed like misty voices far away, spoken for other ears. The tide of
another love had come sweeping in, strong and insistent. George
Frothingham's face smiled before her, and instead of the words she was
reading she heard his voice as they sang together:

"I would that my love could silently
Flow in a single word."

She looked away from the book and gave herself to dreaming until the
little clock reminded her of the hour. Then she roused from her
reverie.

"It is too late," she thought. "I will not try to read now. In the
morning I will make up for it."

She knelt beside the bed for her customary evening prayer, and found
herself "saying" it as in former days. She stopped abruptly.

"Forgive me, Lord," she said, "I did not think what I was saying."

Then a feeling of remorse, of real unhappiness, seized her. Where was
the true worship she had coveted and found? It had flown like a bird
from her windows. In distress she prayed:

"O Lord, I have missed Thee! I cannot see Thy face, I do not hear
Thee. Do not let me lose Thee!"

Her wandering thoughts came back to the supreme need. She was not
versed in the theology of any school, and could not have stated her
case to suit any. But her sensitive soul barometer registered danger
in the atmosphere, and she had no rest until it changed. Being blessed
with the grace of honesty--with "truth in the inward parts"--she poured
out her heart before God, and found much relief in so doing. The whole
subject did not clear at once. A process was required for that. But a
simple understanding with her Lord that He was to be first at any cost
was re-affirmed, and i