unprofitable
questionings, and she had too often heard the vanity of human reason
proclaimed to feel any pride in the readiness with which Lloyd had
answered Squire Wilson in the argument they had on foreordination at
Hiram Graham's infare. Indeed, she had felt it a personal rebuke when
her father had said on the way home that he hoped no child of his would
ever set up his feeble intellect against the eternal purposes of God, as
Lloyd Archer was doing. Marg'et Ann knew perfectly well that if she
married Lloyd in his present unregenerate state she would, in the
estimation of her father and mother, be endangering the safety of her
own soul, which, though presumably of the elect, could never be
conclusively so proved until the gates of Paradise should close behind
it.

She pondered on these things, and talked of them sometimes with Lloyd,
rather unsatisfactorily, it is true; for that rising theologian bristled
with questions which threw her troubled soul into a tumult of fear and
uncertainty.

It was this latter feeling, perhaps, which distressed her most in her
calmer moments; for it was gradually forcing itself upon poor Marg'et
Ann that she must either snatch her lover as a brand from the burning or
be herself drawn into the flames.

She had taken the summer school down on Cedar Creek, and Lloyd used to
ride down for her on Friday evenings when the creek was high.

Rebecca and Archie Skinner were to be married in the fall, and her
mother, who had been ailing a little all summer, would need her at home
when Rebecca was gone. Still, this would not have stood in the way of
her marriage had everything else been satisfactory; and Lloyd suspected
as much when she urged it as a reason for delay.

"If anybody has to stay at home on your mother's account, why not let
Archie Skinner and Becky put off their wedding a while? They're younger,
and they haven't been going together near as long as we have," said
Lloyd, in answer to her excuses.

They were riding home on horseback one Friday night, and Lloyd had just
told her that Martin Prather was going back to Ohio to take care of the
old folks, and would rent his farm very reasonably.

Marg'et Ann had on a slat sunbonnet which made her profile about as
attractive as an "elbow" of stovepipe, but it had the advantage of
hiding the concern that Lloyd's questioning brought into her face. It
could not, however, keep it out of her voice.

"I don't know, Lloyd," she began hesita