"I am resolved I will. Yesterday he talked to me very seriously about the duties which he said would devolve on me. I tried to laugh him out of his sober mood, but he would talk about 'pastoral relations,' and what would be expected of a pastor's wife, until I was ready to cry with vexation. Ernest is not dependent on his salary; his father is considered wealthy, I believe, which fact reconciles ma in some degree. To-morrow he will preach in Dr. Hew's church, and you must go to hear him. I have never yet heard him preach, and am rather anxious to know what sort of sermons I am to listen to for the remainder of my life." She looked at her watch, and rose. "I shall certainly go to hear him," answered Beulah. "Of course you will, and after service you must go home and spend the day with me. Ma begs that you will not refuse to dine with her; and, as you are engaged all the week, Uncle Guy expects you also; that is, he told me to insist on your coming, but thought you would probably decline. Will you come? Do say yes." "I don't know yet. I will see you at church." Thus they parted. CHAPTER XXIV. On Sabbath morning Beulah sat beside the window, with her folded hands resting on her lap. The day was cloudless and serene; the sky of that intense melting blue which characterizes our clime. From every quarter of the city brazen muezzins called worshipers to the temple, and bands of neatly clad, happy children thronged the streets, on their way to Sabbath school. Save these, and the pealing bells, a hush pervaded all things, as though Nature were indeed "at her prayers." Blessed be the hallowed influences which every sunny Sabbath morn exerts! Blessed be the holy tones which at least once a week call every erring child back to its Infinite Father! For some time Beulah had absented herself from church, for she found that instead of profiting by sermons she came home to criticise and question. But early associations are strangely tenacious, and, as she watched the children trooping to the house of God, there rushed to her mind memories of other years, when the orphan bands from the asylum regularly took their places in the Sabbath school. The hymns she sang then rang again in her ears; long-forgotten passages of Scripture, repeated then, seemed learned but yesterday. How often had the venerable superintendent knelt and invoked special guidance for the afflicted band from the God of orphans! Now she felt doubly orphaned. In her intellectual pride, she frequently asserted that she was "the star of her own destiny"; but this morning childish memories prattled of the Star of Bethlehem, before which she once bent the knee of adoration. Had it set forever, amid clouds of superstition, sin, and infidelity? Glittering spires pointed to the bending heavens, and answered: "It burns on forever, 'brighter and brighter unto the perfect day'!" With a dull weight on her heart, she took down her Bible and opened it indifferently at her book- mark.