"If you please," replied Emma, "I had rather be with you. I am not afraid of plain-spoken people, if they are kind. Dora is very careful to tell me my faults, but then her manner is such that I can't help feeling that it is because she loves me so well; so I am neither pained nor vexed. I used to be very partial to _funny_ people; but I feel serious now nearly all of the time. I can love Fanny and Alice; but, Mary dear, I had rather be with you, if you please." "O," replied Mary, "I love to have you with me." She was prevented from saying more, for Alice now called out, "Forward, march! Do you hear the drum?" "It is not probable," said Fanny, "that a _religious_ person like Mary Palmer will march to the tune of Yankee Doodle upon a kettle-drum." Emma looked at Mary, and saw the deep blush upon her face, and the tear that, in spite of herself, trembled in her mild blue eye. "How unkind," thought Emma, "and so _rude_ too! This plain-spoken girl has not a good heart, if people do think so. I shall ask Dora about her." "It is the signal for dinner," said Mary, recovering herself in a minute, and turning with a smile toward Emma. "Henry wants us to go to the wagons." So they walked along arm-in-arm, while Alice and Fanny whispered together about this sudden intimacy, and prophesied that hot love like that would soon be cold. "I mean to tell Mary just what I think of it," said Fanny; "for I am not afraid to speak my mind to anybody." "Well," replied Alice, "I cannot imagine what Miss Emma likes in Mary, or why Mary is so charmed with her. This much I will say, but don't you name it to any one--neither of them is at all to _my_ fancy." It was not wonderful that Alice did not know the secret of that affection between two who were comparatively strangers to each other. The reason was not plain even to Emma and Mary, for neither of them yet knew it by the Scripture name, which is "unity of the Spirit." Each had loved the other while as yet no word of communication had passed between them, because each had a portion of that Spirit which binds heart to heart. Alice would not have understood this had it been told her, for she had never entertained this gentle Spirit. She might have done so, for it knocks at every human heart; but there are other spirits there--spirits that must be cast out, before that which is long-suffering, meek, and good, will come in and sup with us. Alice would not cast emulation, pride, envy, and jealousy out of her heart, that the good Spirit might enter. Would she have done so, she might not have found it so difficult to understand what Emma and Mary saw in each other to love. The company was now assembled under a large tree near to the roadside. Henry had constructed a rude table, over which was spread a cloth, and, assisted by Joshua, he was now bringing the dinner from the wagon, while the Misses Sliver arranged the dishes.