Meantime Marion had undertaken a strange task. Mr. Charlie Flint was the gentleman who had drawn his chair near her, and said, as he drew a long breath:
"It is exceedingly pleasant to breathe air once more that isn't heavy with psalm singing I think they are running that thing a little too steep over there. Who imagined that they were going to have meeting every minute in the day and evening, and give nobody a chance to breathe?"
"Have they exhausted you already?" Marion asked. "Let me see, this is the morning of the second day, is it not?"
"Oh, as to myself, I was exhausted before I commenced it. I am only speaking a word for the lunatics who think they enjoy it. I am one of the victims to our cousin's whim. He expects to get me converted here, I think, or something of that sort."
"I wouldn't be afraid of it," Marion said, in disgust. "I don't believe there is the least danger."
Mr. Charlie chose to consider this as a compliment, and bowed and smiled, and said:
"Thanks. Now tell me why, please."
"You don't look like that class of people who are affected in that way."
He was wonderfully interested, and begged at once to know why. Marion had it in her heart to say, "Because they all look as though they had some degree of brain as well as body," but even she had a little regard left for feelings; so she contented herself with saying, savagely:
"Oh, they, as a rule, are the sort of people who think there is something in life worth doing and planning for, and you look as though that would be too much trouble."