home and take
care of me? Read me some poetry and sing a few of your sweet songs."

Clara looked at him a moment a little incredulously and then replied,
"You are quite well, I know by your laughing. I think it is very wrong
to stay at home from church; indeed I do, Archie. Won't you go with
me?"

"But where shall we go, my good wife?"

"Wherever you are accustomed to."

"I am accustomed to attend that cozy little brick church down by your
uncle's, and I thought I had done duty so well there I should be
considered religious enough for the rest of my days. But don't look so
sad, Clara. I will go anywhere to please you. I know of a splendid
marble church on the Avenue. We will drive there if you like, though I
really have no idea of what persuasion it is. I will order the
carriage and be ready in a few minutes," and he left the room gaily
humming the fragment of an opera air.

It was an elegant, stately church. The brilliant light which flowed
through the stained windows almost dazzled the sight of the young
girl, accustomed only to the plain green shades of the humble village
church. The voice of the deep-toned organ rolled through the marble
hall and then burst forth into a light, gay air, which, to her
unaccustomed ears, sounded strangely in a house of worship. God seemed
nearer in the little church at home, which, nestled down among the
grassy mounds and moss-grown headstones, seemed always pointing to a
life beyond.

When the minister arose she marked well his graceful air, the polished
words and sentences which flowed so smoothly from his lips as he read
them from the page before him. But, alas!

"So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there."

Clara felt that her soul had not been fed, as the carriage rolled away
from the marble church; but there was much around her to attract the
gaze of one who had never before spent a Sabbath in the city. Her
husband was glad to be released from the sound of "the prosy old
doctor's essay," and was in quite good humor with himself for his act
of self-denial in going to church. So the drive home was quite a
pleasant one, though considerably longer than the one to church.

When they reached home a note was brought in containing an invitation
from a fashionable friend of Mr. Allen's to take a little drive out to
the new park grounds that afternoon. The carriage would call at three
o'clock.

Clara was greatly shocked at such a disregard o