the pleasure of company, and of sheltering strangers and
getting the blessing they bring.

The squire's wife peeps through her fine curtains, and says, "I wonder
that pretty and intelligent woman hasn't more taste. She might live
like a lady if she pleased, and dress as I do; but she pokes on just
as she began, and dresses no better than the minister's wife, and has
a rabble of poor, forlorn creatures whom I wouldn't let into my house,
nor into my wood-shed, running after her for food and clothing, and
nobody knows what."

So you see, "my house" is literally "my house," and "our house" is
God's house.

A MOUNTAIN PRAYER MEETING

"Will you go to meeting with me this afternoon, Mabel? Come; this is
your last day here; do go once before you leave the White Mountains."
"What do you do in 'meeting'?" asked the gay, beautiful, "High Church"
New York belle, with just a shade of contemptuous inflection in her
voice.

"Well,--there will be no sermon; there never is in the afternoon. The
good minister sits in the aisle, in front of the pulpit, and invites
any one he likes to make a prayer. Any other one, who feels the need
of it, may request that he or she be mentioned personally in the
petition; and those who wish it may relate their experience."

"How very funny! All the old women 'speakin' in meetin',' and scaring
themselves dreadfully. I'll go. I dare say I shall have a good laugh,
if I don't fall asleep."

So we walked through the long, hilly street of Bethlehem, in the
pleasant hour before sunset, in the sweet, warm, hazy air of early
autumn. The glory of the Lord shone round about us; for all the
mountains were burnished, splendid, gorgeous, in purple and crimson
and gold. Mabel's deep gray eyes grew large and luminous as her
artist-soul drank in the ineffable beauty.

The building was so crowded with the villagers and many visitors that
it was with difficulty we obtained seats, apart from each other. Mabel
found a place next to a young, sweet-faced country woman, and looked,
with her flower-like face and French costume, like some rare exotic by
the side of a humble mountain daisy.

The minister opened the services with a few fervent, simple words, and
then said, "Brother----, will you lead in prayer?"

A plain old country farmer knelt in the aisle before us. His
prayer--sincere, and, I doubt not, as acceptable, because sincere, as
if it had been offered in polished language--made Mabel shake with
la