ruded," said Cecil.

"The Word ought to flavour everything, in season or out of season,"
said Anne, thoughtfully.

"Oh! that's impossible. It's your narrow view. If you thrust
preaching into everything, we can never work together."

"Oh, then," said Anne, quickly, "I must give it up!" And she turned
away with a rapid step, to carry her texts back to her room.

"Anne!" called Cecil, "I did not mean _that_!"

Anne paused for a moment, looked over the baluster, and repeated
firmly, "No, Cecil; it would be denying Christ to work where His
Name is forbidden."

Perhaps there was something in the elevation and the carved rail
that gave the idea of a pulpit, for Cecil felt as if she was being
preached at, and turned her back, indignant and vexed at what she
had by no means intended to incur--the loss of such a useful
assistant as she found in Anne.

"Such nonsense!" she said to herself, as she crossed the hall alone,
there meeting with Rosamond, equipped for the village. "Is not Anne
going to-day?" she said, as she saw the pony-carriage at the door.

"No. It is so vexatious. She is so determined upon preaching to
the women, that I have been obliged to put a stop to it."

"Indeed! I should not have thought it of poor Anne; but no one can
tell what those semi-dissenters think right."

"When she declared she ought to do it in season or out of season,
what was one to do?" said Cecil.

"I thought that was for clergymen," said Rosamond, hitting the right
nail on the head in her ignorance, as so often happened.

"She sees no difference," said Cecil. "Shall I drive you down?" she
added graciously, according to the fashion of uniting with one
sister-in-law against the other; and Rosamond not only accepted, but
asked to be taken on to Willansborough, to buy a birthday present
for her brother Terry, get stamps for an Indian letter, and perform
a dozen more commissions that seemed to arise in her mind with the
opportunity. Her two brothers were to spend the Christmas holidays
with her, and she was in high spirits, and so communicative about
them that she hardly observed how little interest Cecil took in
Terry's achievements.

"Who is that," she presently asked, "with those red-haired children?
It looked like Miss Vivian's figure."

"I believe it was. Julius and I often see her walking about the
lanes; but she passes like--like a fire-flaught, whatever that is--
just bows, and hardly ever speaks."

"She is a st