nd looked lovingly back at
the fair point of land that lay before them in glowing moonlight.
Presently a leading voice began to sing:

"There's a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar;
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling-place there.
We shall meet in the sweet by and by,
On that beautiful shore in the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore."

Before the chorus was reached, every voice that could sing at all must
have taken up the strain. Marion, for the first time in years gave a
hint of the full compass of her powers, making Ruth turn suddenly
towards her, with a brightening face, for she saw how the singing and
the playing could fit into each other, and do good service.

On and on stole the vessel through the silver water. The courteous
captain came around quietly for his tickets, and to one and another
with whose faces he had grown familiar he said: "We shall miss you; the
Col. Phillips has been proud of carrying you all safely back and forth."

One said to him in return: "I hope, captain, we shall all land at last
safe in the harbor." And the captain bowed his answer in silence. It
would have been hard to speak words just then.

But ever and anon that leading voice took up words of song.

Still the song that best seemed to suit all hearts was that tender "By
and by," and as the lights along the Chautauqua shore grew dim it rose
again in swelling volume:

"We shall meet, we shall sing, we shall reign,
In the land where the saved never die;
We shall rest free from sorrow and pain,
Safe at home in the sweet by and by."

Then the refrain, repeated and re-repeated, until, as the last lingering
note of it died away, the boat touched at the wharf, and looking back,
they saw that the Chautauqua lights were out, and silence and darkness
had Fairpoint.

"Good-bye," Marion said, and she bowed towards the distant shore; she
was smiling, but her lips were quivering.

"We shall meet in the sweet by and by," Flossy quoted, but her voice
trembled.

"There is a chance to do grand work first, that the final meeting may be
infinitely larger, because of us."

This the leading voice in the singing said, as he held out his hand to
say good-bye. And as they took it some of the girls noticed for the
first time that it was Mr. Roberts; as for Flossy, she had known it all
the time.

"We are going to try to do some of