. Isn't that good?"

"Depends--" said he. "Probably it will be followed by a reaction."

"And you have kept the church together," added Charity, who was zealous.

"By a rope of sand, then, Miss Charity."

"At any rate, Mr. Dillwyn, you _meant_ to do good," Lois put in here.

"I do not know, Miss Lois. I am afraid I was thinking more of pleasure,
myself; and shall experience myself the reaction I spoke of. I think I
feel the shadow of it already, as a coming event."

"But if we aren't to have any pleasure, because afterwards we feel a
little flat,--and of course we do," said Charity; "everybody knows
that. But, for instance, if we're not to have green peas in summer,
because we can't have 'em any way but dry in winter,--things would be
very queer! Queerer than they are; and they're queer enough already."

This speech called forth some merriment.

"You think even the dry remains of pleasure are better than nothing!"
said Philip. "Perhaps you are right."

"And to have those, we _must_ have had the green reality," said Lois
merrily.

"I wonder if there is any way of keeping pleasure green," said Dillwyn.

"Vain, vain, Mr. Dillwyn!" said Mrs. Barclay. "_Tout lasse, tout casse,
tout passe!_ don't you know? Solomon said, I believe, that all was
vanity. And he ought to know."

"But he didn't know," said Lois quickly.

"Lois!" said Charity--"it's in the Bible."

"I know it is in the Bible that he said so," Lois rejoined merrily.

"Was he not right, then?" Mr. Dillwyn asked.

"Perhaps," Lois answered, now gravely, "if you take simply his view."

"What was his view? Won't you explain?"

"I suppose you ain't going to set up to be wiser than Solomon, at this
time of day," said Charity severely. But that stirred Lois's merriment
again.

"Explain, Miss Lois!" said Dillwyn.

"I am not Solomon, that I should preach," she said.

"You just said you knew better than he," said Charity. "How you should
know better than the Bible, I don't see. It's news."

"Why, Charity, Solomon was not a good man."

"How came he to write proverbs, then?"

"At least he was not always a good man."

"That don't hinder his knowing what was vanity, does it?"

"But, Lois!" said Mrs. Barclay. "Go back, and tell us your secret, if
you have one. How was Solomon's view mistaken? or what is yours?"

"These things were all given for our pleasure, Mrs. Barclay."

"But they die--and they go--and they fade," said Mrs. Barclay.

"You will