said:

"I have been thinking about another friend of yours, that I should be
very glad to see influenced in the right direction. His sister is
trying, I presume; but other people's sisters some times have an
influence. Young Mitchell, the doctor's son, is a young man of real
promise; he ought to be on the Lord's side."

"You are mistaken in supposing him to be a friend of mine," Ruth said,
with promptness and emphasis. "We have the most distant speaking
acquaintance only, and I have a dislike for him amounting to absolute
aversion." There was that in Ruth Erskine's voice when she chose to let
it appear that said, "My aversion is a very serious and disagreeable
thing."

"Yes," the Doctor said, quietly, as one in no degree surprised or
disturbed; "yet he has a soul to be saved, and the Lord Jesus Christ
died to save him."

There was no denying this; and certainly it would not look well in her
to say that she had no desire to have part in his salvation; so she kept
silence. But there followed her a disagreeable remembrance of having
negatived every proposition whereby the doctor had hoped to set her at
work. She decided, disagreeable as it was, to make a vigorous assault on
those families, thereby showing him what she could do.

To this end she arrayed herself in immaculate calling attire--with a
rustle of silk and a softness of ruffle, and a daintiness of glove that
none but the wealthy can assume, and, in short, with that unmistakable
air about every thing pertaining to her that marks the lady of fashion.
These things were as much a part of Ruth Erskine as her hair and eyes
were. Once ready, her dress, perhaps, gave her as little thought as her
eyes or hair did. But she looked as though that must have been the sole
object of thought and study in order to produce such perfect results.

Her preparation for her new and untried work had been none of the best.
As I said, the morning had been given to the cares of the dressmaker and
the deceitfulness of trimmings, so much so that her Bible reading even
had been omitted, and only the briefest and most hurried of prayers,
worthy of the days when prayer was nothing to her but a formal bowing of
the head, on proper occasions, had marked her need of help from the
Almighty Hand. These thoughts troubled her as she went down the Street.
She paused irresolutely before one of the principal bookstores.

"I ought to have some tracts," she said, doubtfully, to herself; "they
always