an to say that he ever was wild in
any way?"

"Oh, perhaps not," said the unfortunate sewing-girl, wishing herself
anywhere else as she tried to find some method of escaping from the
unfortunate remark.

"What do you mean, then? Tell me: can't you speak?"

"Oh, only you know, ma'am, some of the nicest young men in town come
down to the hotel nights to chat, and they take a glass of wine once in
a while, and smoke, and have a good time, and--"

Eleanor looked at Jane very sharply, but the sewing-girl's face was
averted, so that questioning looks could elicit no answers. Eleanor's
gaze, however, continued to be fixed. She was obliged to admit to
herself, as she had said to her mother several days before, that Jane
had a not unsightly face and quite a fine figure. She had heard that
there were sometimes "great larks," as the young men called them, at
the village hotel, and she wondered how much the underlings of the
establishment could know about them, and what stories they could tell.
Jane suddenly became to her more interesting than she had yet been. She
wondered what further questions to ask, and could not think of any that
she could put into words. Finally, she left the room, sought her
mother, and exclaimed,--

"Mother, I'm not going to marry Reynolds Bartram. If hotel servants
know all about his goings-on evenings, what stories may they not tell
if they choose? That sort of people will say anything they can of him.
I don't suppose they know the difference between the truth and a lie;
at least they never do when we hire them."

The mother looked at the daughter tenderly and shrewdly. Then she
smiled, and said,--

"Daughter, I can see but one way for you to relieve your mind on that
subject."

"What is that?" asked the daughter.

"It is only this: convert Jane."

CHAPTER XVII.

As the special meetings at the church went on, Deacon Quickset began to
fear that he had made a mistake. He had taken an active part in all
previous meetings of the same kind for more than twenty-five years. The
results of some of them had been very satisfactory, and the deacon
modestly but nevertheless with much self-gratulation had recounted his
own services in all of them.

"Whoso converteth a sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul
from death and cover a multitude of sins; that is what the good book
says," said the deacon to himself one day, as he walked from his house
to his place of business; "and consi