s.

"There's no use talking, child," said Elsie. "I'm older than you, and
have seen more of real men and women; and whatever they did in old
times, I know that nowadays the saints don't help those that don't take
care of themselves; and the long and the short of it is, we must ride
across those marshes, and get out of them as quick as possible, or we
shall get into Paradise quicker than we want to."

In common with many other professing Christians, Elsie felt that going
to Paradise was the very dismallest of alternatives,--a thing to be
staved off as long as possible.

After many days of journeying, the travellers, somewhat weary and
foot-sore, found themselves in a sombre and lonely dell of the
mountains, about an hour before the going down of the sun. The slanting
yellow beams turned to silvery brightness the ashy foliage of the
gnarled old olives, which gaunt and weird clung with their great,
knotty, straggling roots to the rocky mountain-sides. Before them, the
path, stony, steep, and winding, was rising upward and still upward, and
no shelter for the night appeared, except in a distant mountaintown,
which, perched airily as an eagle's nest on its hazy height, reflected
from the dome of its church and its half-ruined old feudal tower, the
golden light of sunset. A drowsy-toned bell was ringing out the Ave
Maria over the wide purple solitude of mountains, whose varying outlines
were rising around.

"You are tired, my little heart," said old Elsie to Agnes, who had
drooped during a longer walk than usual.

"No, grandmamma," said Agnes, sinking on her knees to repeat her evening
prayer, which she did, covering her face with her hands.

Old Elsie kneeled too; but, as she was praying,--being a thrifty old
body in the use of her time,--she cast an eye up the steep mountain-path
and calculated the distance of the little airy village. Just at that
moment she saw two or three horsemen, who appeared to be stealthily
observing them from behind the shadow of some large rocks.

When their devotions were finished, she hurried on her grandchild,
saying,--

"Come, dearie! it must be we shall find a shelter soon."

The horsemen now rode up behind them.

"Good evening, mother!" said one of them, speaking from under the shadow
of a deeply slouched hat.

Elsie made no reply, but hurried forward.

"Good evening, pretty maid!" he said again, riding still nearer.

"Go your ways in the name of God," said Elsie. "We are pilg