y entertained, of
accompanying these dainty beings home, how weak and inadequate the
phrases of request which they had framed wherewith to accost them!
Madeline Brand is looking particularly grave, as becomes a young lady who
knows that she has three would-be escorts waiting for her just outside
the church door, not to count one or two within, between whose
conflicting claims she has only five minutes more to make up her mind.

The minister had taken up his hymn-book, and was turning over the leaves
to select the closing hymn, when some one rose in the back part of the
room. Every head turned as if pulled by one wire to see who it was, and
Deacon Tuttle put on his spectacles to inspect more closely this dilatory
person, who was moved to exhortation at so unnecessary a time.

It was George Bayley, a young man of good education, excellent training,
and once of great promise, but of most unfortunate recent experience.
About a year previous he had embezzled a small amount of the funds of a
corporation in Newville, of which he was paymaster, for the purpose of
raising money for a pressing emergency. Various circumstances showed that
his repentance had been poignant, even before his theft was discovered.
He had reimbursed the corporation, and there was no prosecution, because
his dishonest act had been no part of generally vicious habits, but a
single unaccountable deflection from rectitude. The evident intensity of
his remorse had excited general sympathy, and when Parker, the village
druggist, gave him employment as clerk, the act was generally applauded,
and all the village folk had endeavoured with one accord, by a friendly
and hearty manner, to make him feel that they were disposed to forget the
past, and help him to begin life over again. He had been converted at a
revival the previous winter, but was counted to have backslidden of late,
and become indifferent to religion. He looked badly. His face was
exceedingly pale, and his eyes were sunken. But these symptoms of mental
sickness were dominated by an expression of singular peace and profound
calm. He had the look of one whom, after a wasting illness, the fever has
finally left; of one who has struggled hard, but whose struggle is over.
And his voice, when he began to speak, was very soft and clear.

"If it will not be too great an inconvenience," he said; "I should like
to keep you a few minutes while I talk about myself a little. You
remember, perhaps, that I profe