r
away the present as pleasantly as might be--and the only reason to which
his unusually serious reverie could be attributed was the presence of
Thelma. She certainly had a strange influence on them all, though she
herself was not aware of it,--and not only Errington, but each one of
his companions had been deeply considering during the day, that
notwithstanding the unheroic tendency of modern living, life itself
might be turned to good and even noble account, if only an effort were
made in the right direction.

Such was the compelling effect of Thelma's stainless mind reflected in
her pure face, on the different dispositions of all the young men; and
she, perfectly unconscious of it, smiled at them, and conversed
gaily,--little knowing as she talked, in her own sweet and unaffected
way, that the most profound resolutions were being formed, and the most
noble and unselfish deeds, were being planned in the souls of her
listeners,--all forsooth! because one fair, innocent woman had, in the
clear, grave glances of her wondrous sea-blue eyes, suddenly made them
aware of their own utter unworthiness. Macfarlane, meditatively watching
the girl from under his pale eyelashes, thought of Mr. Dyceworthy's
matrimonial pretensions, with a humorous smile hovering on his thin
lips.

"Ma certes! the fellow has an unco' gude opeenion o' himself," he mused.
"He might as well offer his hand in marriage to the Queen while he's
aboot it,--he wad hae just as muckle chance o' acceptance."

Meanwhile, Errington, having learned all he wished to know concerning
Sigurd, was skillfully drawing out old Olaf Gueldmar, and getting him to
give his ideas on things in general, a task in which Lorimer joined.

"So you don't think we're making any progress nowadays?" inquired the
latter with an appearance of interest, and a lazy amusement in his blue
eyes as he put the question.

"Progress!" exclaimed Gueldmar. "Not a bit of it! It is all a going
backward; it may not seem apparent, but it is so. England, for instance,
is losing the great place she once held in the world's history,--and
these things always happen to all nations when money becomes more
precious to the souls of the people than honesty and honor. I take the
universal wide-spread greed of gain to be one of the worst signs of the
times,--the forewarning of some great upheaval and disaster, the effects
of which no human mind can calculate. I am told that America is destined
to be the domi