hat to be the
case."

"Do you believe one soul ever was?"

"Why, yes, I suppose so."

"We even know one," Eurie said, speaking low, and looking very grave.

"Do you believe it is possible that another soul may in the next million
years?"

"Of course it is possible."

"Then the question is, how much is one soul worth? I don't feel prepared
to estimate it, do you?" To which question Ruth made no reply "There is
another point," Marion said. "You young ladies talk about being careful
with whom you dance. Don't you accept the attentions of strange young
gentlemen, who have been introduced to you by your fashionable friends?
Take Mr. Townsend, the young man who came here a stranger, and was
introduced in society by the Wagners, because they met him when abroad.
Didn't you dance with him, Eurie Mitchell?"

"Dozens of times," said Eurie, promptly.

"And Flossy, didn't you?"

Flossy nodded her golden head.

"Well, now you know, I suppose, that he has proved to be a perfect
libertine. Honestly, wouldn't you both feel better if he had never had
his arm around you?"

"Marion, your way of saying that thing is simply disgusting!" Ruth said,
in great heat.

"Is it my way of saying it, or is it the thing itself?" Marion asked,
coolly. "I tell you, girls, it is impossible to know whether the man who
dresses well, and calls on you at stated intervals, looking and talking
like a gentleman, is not a very Satan, who will lead away the pretty
guileless, unsuspecting young girl who is worth his trouble; and the
leading often and often commences with a dance; and the young girl may
never have been allowed to dance with him at all had not stately and
entirely unexceptionable leaders of society, like our Ruth here, allowed
it first.

"It is the same question after all, and it narrows down to a fine point.
A thing that can possibly lead one to eternal death, a Christian has no
business to meddle with, even if he knows of but one soul in a million
years who has been so wrecked. In all this we have not even glanced at
the endless directions to 'redeem the time,' to be 'instant in season
and out of season, to 'work while the day lasts,' 'to watch and be
sober.' What do all these verses mean? Are we obeying them when we spend
half the night in a whirl of wild pleasure?

"The fact remains that a majority of people are not temperate in their
dancing; they do it night after night; they long after it, and are
miserable if the weather,