4. To stand up for Jesus always and everywhere.
5. To try to save at least one soul each year.
6. To engage in no amusement where my Savior could not be a guest.
Had the small bit of card-board been a coal of fire it could not have been more suddenly dropped upon the marble before her than was this, as Ester's startled eyes took in its meaning. Who could have written those sentences? and to be placed there in a conspicuous corner of a fashionable store? Was she never to be at peace again? Had the world gone wild? Was this an emanation from Cousin Abbie's brain, or were there many more Cousin Abbies in what she had supposed was a wicked city, or—oh painful question, which came back hourly nowadays, and seemed fairly to chill her blood—was this religion, and had she none of it? Was her profession a mockery, her life a miserably acted lie?
"Is that thing hot?" It was Ralph's amused voice which asked this question close beside her.
"What? Where?" And Ester turned in dire confusion.
"Why that bit of paper—or is it a ghostly communication from the world of spirits? You look startled enough for me to suppose anything, and it spun away from your grasp very suddenly. Oh," he added, as he glanced it through, "rather ghostly, I must confess, or would be if one were inclined that way; but I imagined your nerves were stronger. Did the pronoun startle you?"
"How?"
"Why I thought perhaps you considered yourself committed to all this solemnity before your time, or willy-nilly, as the children say. What a comical idea to hang one's self up in a store in this fashion. I must have one of these. Are you going to keep yours?" And as he spoke he reached forward and possessed himself of one of the cards. "Rather odd things to be found in our possession, wouldn't they be? Abbie now would be just one of this sort."
That cold shiver trembled again through Ester's frame as she listened. Clearly he did not reckon her one of "that sort." He had known her but one day, and yet he seemed positive that she stood on an equal footing with himself. Oh why was it? How did he know? Was her manner then utterly unlike that of a Christian, so much so that this young man saw it already, or was it that glass of wine from which she had sipped last evening?—and at this moment she would have given much to be back where she thought herself two weeks ago, on the wine question; but she stood silent and let him talk on, not once attempting to define her position—partly because there had crept into her mind this fearful doubt, unaccompanied by the prayer: