s of vice was to demean one's self,
and positively refused to follow them, they laughed me to scorn. They
seemed to take a pride in their vices in a way that was disgusting to
me. Then, as if to prove what a stupid greenhorn I was, they pointed out
men who stood well socially, attended church, had wives and families,
and yet led lives that were a shame and disgrace in my estimation. They
proved to me what they asserted in various ways, so I could not doubt
it. It was all a revelation, and for a time upset all my ideas and led
me to think my early training in the way I should walk a stupid waste of
opportunity.

"Beyond that, and perhaps the worst of all, I was made to think that
religious belief was arrant nonsense and used as a cloak for evil
doings; that none except silly old women and equally silly young girls
were sincere in pious professions; that belief in God was an index to
shallowness, and prayer a farce.

"It began to seem to me that I really had been brought up wrong and
trained in absurd ways, and that unless I threw my moral scruples to the
winds, I should be a jest and a laughing-stock to all city people. We
grow to feel, and think, and live like those we meet daily, and when I
came here, among you whose lives and morals were so unlike city folks
and so like those of the people among whom I was reared, it seemed as if
I had gone back to my boyhood home.

"I think the sound of your church bells, Mona, was an influence more
potent than all else to carry my thoughts and feelings home again."

He paused a moment to look out seaward and along the broadening path of
moonlight as if it led into a new life and a new world, while Mona
watched his half-averted face. All this was a revelation to her of his
inner self, his nature and impulses. She had thought tenderly of him
before; now he seemed the embodiment of all that was good and true and
manly--a hero she must fain worship.

"Life is a puzzle-board, dear," he said at last, as if that sparkling
roadway had been followed into a better one; "we all strive for
happiness in it and know not where or how it may be found. We wish to
please ourselves first, and to share it with those who seem akin to us.
Few really desire to annoy others or give them pain. Then again we are
selfish, and our own needs and hungers seem all important. We are a
little vain ofttimes, carnal always, unthinking, and seldom generous. We
forget that it is more blessed to give than to receiv