“I think it would be better if there were no idle people. I'm half ashamed that I have leisure to go every time I go to that mission. And I'm almost sorry, Mr. Lyon, that I took you there. The boys knew you were English. One of them asked me if you were a 'lord' or a 'juke' or something. I cannot tell how they will take it. They may resent the spying into their world of an 'English juke,' and they may take it in the light of a show.” Mr. Lyon laughed. And then, perhaps after a little reflection upon the possibility that the nobility was becoming a show in this world, he said: “I begin to think I'm very unfortunate, Miss Debree. You seem to remind me that I am in a position in which I can do very little to help the world along.” “Not at all. You can do very much.” “But how, when whatever I attempt is considered a condescension? What can I do?” “Pardon me,” and Margaret turned her eyes frankly upon him. “You can be a good earl when your time comes.” Their way lay through the little city park. It is a pretty place in summer--a varied surface, well planted with forest and ornamental trees, intersected by a winding stream. The little river was full now, and ice had formed on it, with small openings here and there, where the dark water, hurrying along as if in fear of arrest, had a more chilling aspect than the icy cover. The ground was white with snow, and all the trees were bare except for a few frozen oak-leaves here and there, which shivered in the wind and somehow added to the desolation. Leaden clouds covered the sky, and only in the west was there a gleam of the departing winter day. Upon the elevated bank of the stream, opposite to the road by which they approached, they saw a group of people--perhaps twenty-drawn closely together, either in the sympathy of segregation from an unfeeling world, or for protection from the keen wind. On the hither bank, and leaning on the rails of the drive, had collected a motley crowd of spectators, men, women, and boys, who exhibited some impatience and much curiosity, decorous for the most part, but emphasized by occasional jocose remarks in an undertone. A serious ceremony was evidently in progress. The separate group had not a prosperous air. The women were thinly clad for such a day. Conspicuous in the little assembly was a tall, elderly man in a shabby long coat and a broad felt hat, from under which his white hair fell upon his shoulders. He might be a prophet in Israel come out to testify to an unbelieving world, and the little group around him, shaken like reeds in the wind, had the appearance of martyrs to a cause. The light of another world shone in their thin, patient faces. Come, they seemed to say to the worldlings on the opposite bank--come and see what happiness it is to serve the Lord. As they waited, a faint tune was started, a quavering hymn, whose feeble notes the wind blew away of first, but which grew stronger.