ble. The only effect they had on her was to make her smile at
the thought of the impossibility of anything like a religious
conversation in such society as that!

"How they would stare," she said to herself, "if I should ask them about
a prayer-meeting! I have half a mind to try it. If father were not
within hearing I would, just to see what these finished young ladies
would say."

But she did not try it; and the evening passed, as so many evenings had,
without an attempt on her part to carry out any of the thoughts which
troubled her. She looked forward to one bit of work which she expected
to fall to her share, at least she liked to call it work.

That card-party to which she had been invited; she would be expected to
attend in company with Mr. Wayne; she meant to decline, and her father
would be surprised and a trifle annoyed, for it was at a place where,
not liking the people well enough himself to be social, he desired his
daughter to atone for his deficiency. But she would steadily refuse. She
did not shrink from this effort as Flossy did; on the contrary, she
half enjoyed the thought of being a calm and composed martyr.

But, quite to her discomfort, the martyrdom was not permitted; at least
it took a different form. Mr. Wayne was obliged to be out of town, and
sent profuse regrets, assuming that, of course, it would be a sore
disappointment to her.

Her father took sufficient notice of it to make one or two efforts to
agreeably supply his place, and failing in that, assured his daughter
that rather than have her disappointed, he would have planned to
accompany her himself if he had known of Mr. Wayne's absence in time.
The actual cross that it would have been to explain to her father that
she did not desire to go, and the reasons therefor, she did not take up;
but the occurrence served to annoy her.

Two days afterward she was busy all the morning with her dressmaker,
getting a special dress ready for a wedding among the upper circles. She
had been hurried and worried, and was as nearly out of patience as her
calmness ever allowed her to be. Still she remembered that it was the
prayer-meeting evening, that she should see Dr. Dennis, and that he
would be likely to ask her about the people on that list. She ought to
go that afternoon, and try what she could do.

Once since her call on Dr. Dennis she had met him as he was going down
Clinton Street, and he had turned and joined her for a few steps, while
he