"I don't think I did. I said it wasn't a matter for me to meddle with." "Well, don't you?" "No, Allison, not unless you feel that God has called you and you are willing to do what He wants you to. If you just went because you thought I wanted you to go, I don't believe it would be worth while, because you wouldn't be working with the right spirit. But, as I said before, that is something you have got to account for to God, not to me." Allison drew his brows in a frown, and said no more; but he was almost silent at supper, and ate with an abstracted air. At quarter to eight he flung down the magazine he had been reading, and got up. "Well, I s'pose I've got to go to that bloomin' thing," he said half angrily. "Come on, kid; you going?" Leslie hurried into her hat and cape, and they went off together, Allison grumbling in a low, half-pleasant voice all the time. Julia Cloud sat apparently reading, watching the little byplay, and praying that God would strengthen the young heart. "Dear Moses!" she murmured with a smile on her lips as the front door banged behind the children and she was left reading alone. Two hours later the two returned full of enthusiasm. Leslie was brimming over. "O Cloudy, we're going to give this sleepy old town the surprise of a lifetime! We're going to have a grand time to-morrow night, just getting all the members together and doping it out what to do. And you ought to hear Allison talk! He's just like a man! He made a wonderful speech telling them how they ought to get together, and everybody do teamwork and all that, like they do in football; and they asked him to make it over again to-morrow night, and he's going to!" Leslie's eyes were shining with pride, and she looked at her brother lovingly. He flushed embarrassedly. "Well, what could you do, Cloudy? There they were sitting like a lot of boobs, and nobody knowing what to do except that Jane Bristol. She's the only sensible one of the bunch, and they don't listen to her. They made me mad, ignoring her suggestions the way they did; so I had to speak up and say she was right; and I guess I talked a lot more when I got started, because she really had the right dope, all right, and they ought to have had sense enough to know it. She's been in this work before, and been to big State conventions and things. Say, Cloudy, that Christian Endeavor stuff must be a pretty big thing. It seems to have members all over the world, and it's really a kind of international fraternity. I rather like their line. It's stiff all right, but that's the only way if you're going into a thing like that." "And how did the praying go?" asked Julia Cloud, watching her boy's handsome, eager face as he talked. "All right," he evaded reticently. "_He_ prayed, Cloudy!" announced Leslie proudly. "It was _regular_!"