and benevolent, could get themselves up in that ridiculous
manner! If we live in the world at all we have to have a little regard
for propriety. I wonder if she thinks one's entire time and money should
be devoted to the heathen?"

Marion answered her with spirit.

"Oh, don't try to apologize for the folly that is going on in this world
in the name of religion! It can't be done, and sensible people only make
fools of themselves if they attempt it. There is nothing plainer or more
impossible to deny than that church-members give and work and pray for
the heathen as though they were a miserable and abominable set of
brutes, who ought to be exterminated from the face of the earth, but
for whom some ridiculous fanatics called 'missionaries' had projected a
wild scheme to do something; and _they_, forsooth, must be kept from
starving somehow, even though they had been unmitigated fools; so the
paltry collections are doled out, with sarcastic undertones about the
'waste of money,' and the sin of missionaries wearing clothes, and
expecting to have things to eat after throwing themselves away. Don't
talk to me! I've been to missionary societies; I know all about it. The
whole system is one that is exactly calculated to make infidels. I
believe Satan got it up, because he knew in just what an abominable way
the dear Christians would go at it, and what a horrid farce they would
make of it all."

"It is a great pity you are not a Christian, Marion. I never come in
contact with any one who understands their duty so thoroughly as you
appear to, and I think you ought to be practicing."

Ruth said this calmly enough. She was not particularly disturbed; she
did not belong to them, you know; but for all that she was remotely
connected with those who did, and was just enough jarred to make her
give this quiet home thrust. Oddly enough it struck Marion as it never
had before, although the same idea had been suggested to her by other
nettled mortals. It was true that she had realized how the practicing
ought to be done, and a vague wish that she _did_ believe in it all, and
could work by their professed standard with _all her soul_, flitted over
her.

Meantime Flossy was being educated. The morning work had touched her
from a different standpoint. She had not heard Dr. Walden; instead she
had wandered into a bit of holy ground. She began by losing her way. It
is one of the easiest things to do at Chautauqua. The avenues cross and
rec