"I haven't come for them," he said smiling and holding out his hand! "How do you do?"
"Oh, quite well. Didn't you come for them? I am glad, for I felt ashamed. Dr. Dennis, don't you see how well one woman can do the work of twenty? Don't you like the way the primary class is managed? Oh, by the way, you want that book, don't you? I meant to send it home by Gracie."
"I don't want it," he said, laughing this time. "Are you resolved that I may not call on you without a good and tangible reason? If that be the case, I certainly have one. I want you to sit down here, while I tell you all about it."
"I'm not in the mood for a scolding," she said, trying to speak gayly, though there was a curious little tremble to her voice. "I have been away down in the valley of gloom to-day. I believe I am a little demoralized. Dr. Dennis, I think I need a prayer-meeting every evening; I could be happier then, I know."
"A Christian ought to be able to have one," he said, quickly. "Two souls ought to be able to come together in communion with the Master every evening. There is a great deal of wasted happiness in this world. I want to talk to you about that very thing."
Dr. Dennis was not given to making long calls on his parishioners; there were too many of them, and he had too little time; but he made an unprecedentedly long one on Marion Wilbur.
When she went back to her room that night, the fire was gone out utterly; not even a smoke remained. She lighted her smoky little lamp—there was no gas in the third story—and looked at her watch with an amazed air; she had not imagined that it could be nearly 11 o'clock! Then she pushed the reports into a drawer and turned the key; no use to attempt reports for that evening. As she picked up her class-book, the scribbling on the fly-leaf caught her eye again. She smiled a rare, rich, happy smile; then swiftly she drew her pencil and added one more name to the line. "Marion Wilbur—Marion J. Wilbur," it read. There was just room on the line for another word; then it read—"Marion J. Wilbur Dennis!" To be sure, she took her rubber quickly from her pocket and obliterated every trace of that last. But what of it? There are words and deeds that can not so easily be obliterated; and Marion, as she laid her grateful head on her fluffy little pillow that night, was thankful it was so, and felt no desire to erase them.
Desolate? Not she; God was very gracious. The brightness that she felt sure she could throw around some lives, she knew would have a reflex brightness for her. Then, queerly enough, the very next thing she thought of, was that dainty supper she planned for herself, that she could have prepared for a school-teacher, wet, hungry and tired. Why not for a school-girl? If she had no sister to do it for, why not for a daughter? "Dear little Gracie!" she said. Then she went to sleep.
Meantime, during that eventful evening Ruth sat in her room, alone, busy with grave and solemn thoughts. Her father was already many miles away. He had gone to see his wife and daughter. Eurie at that same hour was bending anxiously over a sick mother, trying to catch the feebly-whispered direction, with such a heavy, heavy pain at her heart. But the same patient, wise, all-powerful Father was watching over and directing the ways of each of his four girls.
