ir, but had wrenched herself out of their
sympathies in a degree which could not have been exceeded by an actual
crime on her part.

Time had in some measure healed the sensitiveness which had been
sorely wounded by the withdrawal and disapproval of these early
friends; but she seemed to feel all reflected and renewed in her brief
acquaintance with the strangers at Nepaug, especially in her
intercourse with Miss Standish. There is a curious resemblance, which
lies deeper than outward circumstances, between New England and
Scotland. The same outward environment of frugal poverty, the same
inward experience of intense religious exaltation, continued from
generation to generation, produced in early New England a type closely
allied to the Scotch Covenanters, and many resemblances still linger
among their descendants, widely as they may be removed from the
primitive conditions which formed their ancestors.

Miss Standish's manner was marked by all the old Covenanters'
directness, and in spite of her prepossession in Nora Costello's
favor, showed clearly that she looked upon her as an extremist, if not
a fanatic.

"What took you into that Salvation Army?" she had asked, as she sat by
Nora's bedside in the upper front chamber of the White-House.

"A divine call, I hope," Nora had answered.

"Couldn't you have done just as much good in some of the churches?"

"Very likely, but there's many will be doing that work, and there's no
over-crowding among us highway-and-hedgers."

Nora remembered a curious little look on Miss Standish's face, as if
she thought the answer savored of sarcasm. This expression had led her
on to further explanation:--

"I know just how folk will be feeling about the Army. I know how I
felt myself before I signed the Articles of War,--as if it was much
like joining a circus-troop, going about so with a brass band."

"Well, isn't it?" asked Miss Standish, bluntly.

Nora colored, but answered amiably: "No, it does not look so to me
now,--whiles there's things in the Army work for which I've no liking
myself, the noise and a'; but such things are not for you and me. We
can get our spiritual aid and comfort somewhere else; but these are
like a snare spread for the souls we are hunting, and when you see the
rough men come round us like those in the London streets, it's fair
wonderfu' how they be taken wi' the drums and torches."

"Humph!" sniffed Miss Standish, "it is as easy to gather converts wit