hey were not getting on at all. Marion decided to speak without trying
to bring herself gracefully to the point.

"I want to ask a favor of you. Will you go to meeting with me to-night?"

"To meeting," Miss Banks repeated, without turning from the book-case.
"What meeting is there to-night?"

"Why, the prayer-meeting at the First Church. There is always a meeting
there on Wednesday nights."

Miss Banks turned herself slowly away from the book she was examining
and fixed her clear, cold gray eyes on Marion:

"And so there has been every Wednesday evening during the five years
that we have been in school together, I presume. To what can I be
indebted for such an invitation at this late day?"

It was very hard for Marion not to get angry. She knew this cold
composure was intended as a rebuke to herself for presuming to have
withdrawn from the clique that had hitherto spent much time together.

"What is the use of this?" she asked; a shade of impatience in her
voice, though she tried to control it. "You know, Miss Banks, that I
profess to have made a discovery during the last few weeks; that I try
to arrange all my actions with a view to the new revelations of life and
duty which I have certainly had; in simple language you know that,
whereas, I not long ago presumed to scoff at conversion, and at the idea
of a life abiding in Christ, I believe now that I have been converted,
and that the Lord Jesus is my Friend and Brother; I want to tell you
that I have found rest and peace in him. Is it any wonder that I should
desire it for my friends? I do honestly crave for you the same
experience that I have enjoyed, and to that end I have asked you to
attend the meeting with me to-night."

It is impossible to describe the changes on Miss Banks' face during this
sentence. There was a touch of embarrassment, and more than a touch of
incredulity, and over all a look of great amazement. She continued to
survey Marion from head to foot with those cold, gray eyes, for as much
as a minute after she had ceased speaking. Then she said, speaking
slowly, as if she were measuring every word:

"I am sure I ought to be grateful for the trouble you have taken; the
more so as I had not presumed to think that you had any interest in
either my body or my soul. But as I have had no new and surprising
revelations, and know nothing about the Friend and Brother of whom you
speak, I may be excused from coveting the like experience with yourself,