"I recall the invitation now, but I never gave it a second thought,
nor did I suppose that you had. Did you not notice from the wording
that it was to be a dancing party. I think there must be some mistake
about it, as I never was invited before our marriage to these
parties, nor have we been since; I cannot understand why they should
ask us now."

"Why, pray, should we not be invited? It is not necessary for you to
dance, of course. We shall be obliged to go, for I have accepted the
invitation," Mrs. Eldred replied, with a nothing-further-to-be-said
air.

"I am sorry you accepted an invitation for me, without consulting me,
but I cannot go," her husband answered gravely.

"Oh fie! How old and strait-laced you are for a young man; why Dr.
Henry often went and looked on, and his daughter danced, and people
liked him all the better for it. You will be immensely unpopular if
you pursue that course. Don't you think," she continued, encouraged
by his silence, "that it savours a little of bigotry and egotism to
set one's self up to condemn an amusement that many other Christians
approve? What is your ground of objection? One would suppose that you
had received a direct revelation on the subject."

"I have," he said, and his clear eyes looked full into hers,
"directly from the Master himself. Don't you know that a person who
is absorbed in Christian work, a consecrated Christian, is not
absorbed in all these amusements, and one who is, has no room in his
heart for Christ. There is a law of Natural Philosophy, you know,
which says that 'Two bodies cannot occupy the same place at the same
time', and there is a somewhat similar law in regard to a soul,
stated by the Lord himself. 'Ye cannot serve two masters.' It is the
world or Christ with every soul, and I have chosen Christ."

"I know this much," she said, coldly, "that fanatics are the most
intolerable of all people. I have danced all my life, and since I
became a church-member, and never had it hinted to me before that I
was not a Christian because I loved it. You need not go; John can
take me and call for me, and I will make excuses for you."

"My dear wife! would you do that? Surely you did not yourself intend
to dance; the most liberal would be shocked, I fancy, were a
minister's wife to dance."

"And why? I am not the minister. I recognise no restraints that do
not apply as well to every Christian woman. You told me yourself that
Mrs. Graham is an excellent