likeness
was to be forever eagerly, earnestly, constantly, sought for, striven
after, until some day would come that blessed awakening, and the picture
would be found to be complete!

Was it the best sermon that had ever been preached? Was it the _only_
spiritual sermon that the First Church people had ever heard, or was it
that four girls had been to Chautauqua, and there learned how to listen?
Their cheeks glowed, and their eyes dilated over the wonderful thoughts
that the subject presented, the endless possibility for climbing!

Marion Wilbur had been counted ambitious; she had longed for a chance to
reach high; here was her chance; she felt it, and gloried in it; she
meant to try. Every nerve quivered with the determination, and the
satisfaction of realizing that she belonged to the great royal family.
No more obscurity for her. She was a child of the King, and the kingdom
was in view. A crown, aglow with jewels--nothing less must satisfy her
now. The sermon over, the hymn sung, and amid the pealing of the organ,
as it played the worshipers down the aisles, our four girls met.

They knew each other's determination. The next thing to do was to go to
Sunday-school. But I suppose you have no idea how strangely they felt;
how much it seemed to them as if they were children who had come to a
party uninvited, and as if they must at this last minute hide their
heads and run home. The very effort to go up to the Sunday-school room
seemed too much a cross to undertake.

There were so many to stare, and look their amazement; there was no one
to go with; nobody to think of such a thing as asking them to go. It
would have been so much less awkward if they could have followed in the
lead of one who had said, "Won't you come up and see our Sunday-school?"

The superintendent passed them as they stood irresolute; he bowed
courteously, and no more thought of asking them to join him than though
they had been birds of brilliant plumage flying by. Dr. Dennis passed
them; _he_ said good-morning, not gladly, not even graciously; he
dreaded those girls, and their undoubted influence. They had not the
least idea how much mischief they had done him in the way of frittering
away his influence heretofore. How should they know that he dreaded
them? On the other hand how was he to know that they absolutely longed
for him to take them by the hand, and say, "Come?" They looked at him
curiously as he passed, and Eurie said:

"Doesn't it mak