you couldn't slip in a flax-seed sharp end first. I feel as if we were going to have a real good time."

"What about lights?" asked Miss Armstrong.

"I always calculate to provide them. We don't have many in summer. I hope you will all come, girls, and all have a verse at least. Will your sister be out, Faith?"

"I don't believe she will," answered Faith: "she has so much to do.”

"She would do it a deal easier, and better too, if she would take some rest now and again, — that's my opinion," said the miller. "Between the mill and the farm and the blacksmith-shop, I have plenty of irons in the fire, and I don't let them get cold, either; but I couldn't afford not to take time for the Bible class. You tell her what I say. And you come along with me: I've got some nice early pease to send her. The folks laughed at me for buying them, they're some I sent for to Flower City, — and said the old-fashioned ones were good enough. 'You have the laugh,' says I, 'I'll have the pease.' Now I've got the laugh, and the pease too. Come along, little ones, and see if Ma Bassett hasn't got some gingerbread. You leave the key, Miss Armstrong, and I'll see to the rest. I feel as if we were going to have a real good time."

CHAPTER V.

THE MEETING.

It appeared that Mr. Bassett's prophecy was going to be fulfilled; so far, at least, as numbers were concerned. The children carried home the news that Miss Armstrong had the schoolhouse all swept out, instead of leaving it to be done at noon on Saturday; that she had helped to dust the desks and seats with her own hands, and had put flowers on the desk and in the fireplace, because she said the room ought to be made neat and pleasant for the service of God. Truth to tell, this idea, which would not be considered very original in many places, was one which had not found entrance to the minds of people in Oldham.

"She had better go and talk to Mr. Archimball, the sexton at the Corners," said Mrs. Gleason, when Agnes told her what Miss Armstrong had said. “I do hate to wear my black silk to church Sundays, because I get it just covered with dust. I believe I will go to Bible class this evening."

"Do," said Agnes. "I'll take care of the milk if you will."

"Oh, we can both go. It is only to have supper a little earlier. Set the table, and I'll have it ready directly."

"Won't you go to the class to-night, sister?" asked Faith Fletcher when she had put away the children's books, and put on their home aprons.

"There is the

"How can I go?" asked Patience. milk to take care of, and the dishes to wash, and Eddy's new frock to finish so she can wear it on Sunday. It is easy to talk about going to class."

"Well, I can wash the dishes and take care of the milk as well as you, if you would only think so; and there will be time enough to finish Eddy's frock to-morrow. Besides, if she don't have it, she can wear her old one: it looks as well as it did last Sunday. Come, sister, do go for once. says he knows it will do you good."

"Yes, much he knows about my work."

Mr. Bassett

"Well, there is one thing I would like to know," said Faith, who was not easily put down when she once took a fit of "arguing," as her sister called it: "I should like to know where is the use of being a Christian when one does not get any comfort or help out of it. Seems to me, if I was a church-member, and professed to love the Lord better than any one else, I'd go where I was sure to meet Him, even if I had to put my dishes in cold water to soak, and didn't wash them till next morning."

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What a girl you are to talk!" said Patience, half vexed, half laughing. "It is a pity you were not a boy, so you could be a preacher. I suppose I ought to go sometimes, that's a fact."

"Mr. Bassett says it would do you good," persisted Faith. "He says, with all he has to do, he finds it a rest to go to the class. Come, sister, do try it for once. I'll put the children to bed, and do all the work, if you will."

"Don't you want to go yourself?”

"Yes, I should like it well enough; but I don't suppose we could both be spared. Pa couldn't put the twins to bed."

"What is that pa can't do?" asked Mr. Fletcher from the door. He was a tall, spare, elderly man, with a somewhat careworn, considerate face, grave but not unkindly, and with a sparkle of humor in it. "What is that you think pa can't do? Put the children to bed? He can do it as well as you or any old woman in Oldham; and, if he should happen to stick the pins in with the heads west instead of east, sissy can alter 'em when she comes home. They won't disturb the balance of the solar system much for that time. Just run down and let in the cows, Faithy they are mooing at the bars; and look on my work-bench, and see if I left my other glasses. The fact is, sister, Faith is more than half right," he added more seriously. "I don't like to say any thing that sounds like blaming you, considering all you do; but just look at it. You say you wish Faith cared more about religion; but how can you wonder that she thinks it a matter of no great consequence, after all, when she sees us let every thing come before it, when she sees us, who, as she says, profess to love God, so wrapped up in the little things of this world that we haven't any time for His service? I

must say, when I heard the child talking just now, I felt reproved."

"Oh, well, I'll go," said Patience in a somewhat aggrieved tone; "but I think it is rather hard on me, when I make a slave of myself for you and the children, to be called worldly and all that, as if I spent my whole time dressing and visiting, like Mary Blandy."

"In the first place, I didn't call you so, not as I remember," replied her father. "I said we were too much taken up with the things of the world; which I take to be all things that perish in the using, whether they be dresses, or rolls of butter, or beanthreshers. In the next place, daughter, we should none of us be slaves, but the Lord's free men and free women."

"Why don't you go yourself, then, pa, if we are going to do so much good by it?" asked Patience, already ashamed of her little burst of temper, which, in truth, was more nervous fatigue than any thing else.

"Because I think you need rest and refreshment rather more than I do, my daughter. A man's work is less tiring than a woman's, seeing he is out in the fresh air most of the time; at least, that is my opinion."

"Everybody isn't like you, pa," said poor Patience, who felt the moisture uncomfortably near her eyes. Ezra makes more steps in a day when he is at home than you do in a week, though he is always saying, 'Oh, don't trouble yourself!'"

"Ezra is only a boy; but he is a pretty good boy,