had been
torn away from her and flung out for the world to trample upon. For a
long time she stood staring from the window into the darkness, unshed
tears burning behind her eyes and throat, trying to steady the beating
of her heart and get used to the gnawing trouble that somehow made her
feel faint and weak.

It came over her that she had been a fool to attempt to fill the place
of mother to these two modern young things. Their own ideas were fully
made up about all questions that seemed vital to her. She had been a
fossil in a back-country place all her life, and of course they felt
she did not know. Well, of course she did not know much about modern
society and its ways, save to dread it, and to doubt it, and to wish
to keep them away from it. She was prejudiced, perhaps. Yes, she had
been reared that way, and the world would call her narrow. Would
Christ the Lord feel that way about it? Did He like to have His
children dressing like abandoned women and making free with one
another under the guise of polite social customs? Did He want His
children to spend their Sabbaths in play, however innocent the play
might be? She turned with a sigh away from the window. No, she could
not see it any other way. It was the way of the world, and that was
all there was to it. Leslie had made it plain when she said they had
to do it or be left out. And wasn't that just what it meant to be a
"peculiar people" unto the Lord, to be willing to give up doubtful
things that harmed people for the sake of keeping pure and unspotted
from the world? "If ye were of the world, the world would love its
own; but because I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you," came the familiar old words. Well, and what should
she do now? It wouldn't do to rave and fuss about things. That never
did any good. She couldn't say she wouldn't stay if they danced and
went away over the Sabbath. Those were things in which she might
advise, but had no authority. They were old enough to decide such
matters for themselves. She could only use her influence, and trust
the rest with the Lord. Yes, there was one thing she could do. She
could pray!

So Julia Cloud gave her quiet orders to Cherry, and went up to her
rose-and-gray room to kneel by the bed and pray, agonizing for her
beloved children through the long hours of that long, long evening.

It was a quiet face that she lifted at last from her vigil, for it
bore the brightness of a face-t