than the one she
contemplated?

The Spirit said amen; and Winifred remembered how all her interviews
with George Frothingham had left her not helped at all in the way of
the spirit, but rather hindered. What would be a lifelong fellowship?
She cast to the winds all thought of inaugurating a dubious mission for
the young man's salvation through means of a forbidden fellowship, and
so the Soul, led by the Spirit, took wood and fire and repaired to the
mount of sacrifice.

The decisive evening came, and Frothingham, never more elegant nor more
winning, appeared. He was not dismayed by Winifred's unusual
constraint, for he had noticed a growing shyness and drew his own happy
conclusion from it. He had brought a roll of music--a new love song,
into which he poured the richness of his mellow voice while Winifred
accompanied him. But her fingers trembled over the keys and she struck
a false note occasionally.

Later they were standing beneath the chandelier, the light falling upon
Winifred's pale face, as she answered words he had been speaking.

"No, I cannot marry you," she said, and her voice shrank from the words
as ranch for the pain they must cause him as for her own. "It is
impossible."

His handsome face clouded with surprise and alarm. He pleaded,
expostulated, reasoned, but in vain. Winifred was firm, and a certain
womanly dignity hid the grief that she felt, lest its display should
afterward bring humiliating regret. She told him as clearly as she
could the reason why she could not become his wife, and to his
unspiritual judgment it seemed a petty cause. He was accustomed to
seeing a type of religion that could exist in harmony with the world,
and he did not see why the fact that Winifred was a Christian and had
become uncommonly interested in that sort of thing should hinder her
being the best of wives to a worldly man like himself. They need not
quarrel about it. As to any scruples that might be entertained in her
conscientious little head about all the gaiety he cared for, he
inwardly credited himself with skill to overcome them when once she
should be his. But Winifred made it clear to him at last that the
matter was unmistakably and finally settled, and deep was his chagrin.
Wounded pride rose with a sense of his rejection, and he straightened
his fine figure in haughty coldness.

"Very well," he said. "I must abide by your decision, and we will
part."

"We shall still be friends?" she