igion
and temperance. Yet, even with them, Dr. Cuyler and Dr. Cuyler's great
church were eccentricities to be tolerated, not ignored. Therefore Ruth
had had it in her heart to enjoy listening to him sometime. The sometime
had arrived. She had dressed herself with unusual care, a ceremony which
seemed to be quite in the background among the people who were at home
at Chautauqua. But someway it seemed to Ruth that the great Brooklyn
pastor should receive this mark of respect at her hands; so she had
spent the morning at her toilet and was now a fashionable lady,
fashionably attired for church.

If the people who vouchsafed her a glance as she crowded past indulged,
some of them, in a smile at her expense, and thought the simple temple
made of trees and grasses an inappropriate surrounding to her silken
robes and costly lace mantle, she was none the wiser for that, you know,
and took her seat, indifferent to them all, except that presently there
stole over her the sense of disagreeable incongruity with her outdoor
surroundings; so Satan had the pleasure of ruffling her spirits and
occupying her thoughts with her rich brown silk dress instead of letting
her heart be touched with the solemnity and beauty of the grand hymn
which rolled down those long aisles. Satan has that everlasting weapon,
"What to wear, and what not to wear," everlastingly at command and
wonderfully under his control. But Ruth, in her way, was strong-minded
and could control her thoughts when she chose; so she presently shook
off the feeling of annoyance and decided to give herself up to the
influences of the hour.

By this time Dr. Cuyler appeared and was introduced, Ruth gave him the
benefit of a very searching gaze, and decided that he was the very last
man of all those on the platform whom she would have selected as the
speaker. Probably if Dr. Cuyler had known this, and known also that his
personal presence entirely disappointed her, he would not have been
greatly disconcerted thereby. But his subject was one that found an
answering thrill in this young lady's heart--"Some Talks I Have Had With
Great Men." Ruth liked greatness. In her calm, composed way she bowed
before it. She would have enjoyed being great. Celebrity in a majestic,
dignified form would have been her delight. She by no means admitted
this, as Eurie Mitchell so often did. She by no means sought after it in
the small ways within her reach. Small ways did not suit her; they
disguste