days that intervened, and their plan
necessarily involved the going alone, or with what company they could
gather, instead of meeting and keeping each other company, as they had
done in the first days of their prayer-meeting life.

Marion came first, and alone. She went forward to their usual seat with
a very forlorn and desolate air. She had entered upon the work with
enthusiasm, and with eager desire and expectation of success. To be sure
she was a long time deciding whom to ask, and several times changed her
plans.

At last her heart settled on Miss Banks, the friend with whom she had
almost been intimate before these new intimacies gathered around her.
Latterly they had said little to each other. Miss Banks had seemed to
avoid Marion since that rainy Monday when they came in contact so
sharply. She was not exactly rude, nor in the least unkind; she simply
seemed to feel that the points of congeniality between them were broken,
and so avoided her.

She did this so successfully, that, even after Marion's thought to
invite her to the meeting had taken decided shape, it was difficult to
find the opportunity. Having gotten the idea, however, she was
persistent in it; and at last, during recess, on the very day of the
meeting, she came across her in the library, looking aimlessly over the
rows of books.

"In search of wisdom, or recreation?" Marion asked, stopping beside her,
and speaking with the familiarity of former days.

"In search of some tiresome references for my class in philosophy. Some
of the scholars are provokingly in earnest in the study, and will not be
satisfied with the platitudes of the text-book."

"That is a refreshing departure from the ordinary state of things, isn't
it?" Marion asked, laughing at the way in which the progress of her
pupils was put. Then, without waiting for an answer, and already feeling
her resolution beginning to cool, she plunged into the subject that
interested her. "I have been in search of you all the morning."

"That's surprising," Miss Banks said, coolly. "Couldn't I be found? I
have been no further away than my school-room?"

"Well, I mean looking for you at a time when you were not engaged, or
perhaps looking forward to seeing you at such a time, would be a more
proper way of putting it," said Marion, trying to smile, and yet feeling
a trifle annoyed.

"One is apt to be somewhat engaged in a school-room during school-hours,
especially if one is a teacher."

T