"I didn't mean that; indeed I didn't, Walter," cried Grace, in distress.
"I don't think you did, Gracie; but there is a verse in the Bible which says we are to keep 'from all appearance of evil'. (1 Thess. v. 22). I was reading the chapter to mother last night, and she explained it to me as meaning that it is not enough for us to feel in our hearts that we do not mean wrong,—we must so act that there can be no mistake about our motives. We must boldly do what we know to be right, regardless of consequences. You may have made Frank think that, after all, you do not really care about God and Jesus Christ, or you would never allow yourself to be laughed out of your singing your hymn. Perhaps, too, he did it for the very purpose of trying you."
"I will pray to God to make me braver next time, Walter." And then she added, with a sigh, "How I wish my mother would talk to me as yours does to you!"
"My mother is one of my great blessings, Gracie; I often think of those lines:
"'Not more than others I deserve,
Yet God has given me more.'
"But where is Frank, Gracie? He was not in the kitchen when I passed through. There was only Joe and Ned there. I made sure he would have been at home this afternoon, and I wanted to speak a word to him."
"I heard him and Tom Haines unfastening the boat about half an hour since," said Gracie, "and I think they went across into the wood, for I heard the rustle under their feet."
"Is Tom Haines often here?"
"Almost every night; sometimes quite late. I hear them coming across in the boat after I have been in bed a long, long time. He says it is such a near way for him to come, now that he works near Oak Glen."
Walter was on the point of saying that Tom could not be coming home from work so late at night; but he refrained himself, and merely said,—