"That is where I do intend to preach. At least upon the frontiers of our great West." "O, how dismal!" she exclaimed. "And can you, a young, and I suppose an ambitious man, look forward to being buried alive, as it were, in those remote regions?" "I assure you I do not propose to be buried alive at the West, or spiritually smothered, as you hinted, in a fashionable church at the East. I think the extreme West, where states and society are forming with such marvellous rapidity, is just the place for a young, and certainly for an ambitious man. Is it nothing to have a part in founding and shaping an empire?" "You admit that you are ambitious, then." "Yes." "Is that right?" "I think so." "Our minister inveighs against ambition, as if it were one of the deadly sins." "He means the ambition that is all for self. That is as wrong and contemptible as the beauty that is miserable without a looking-glass. An ardent desire to obtain my Divine Master's approval, and to be worthy of it--to be successful in serving a noble cause--cannot be wrong." She looked at his earnest face and eyes, that seemed to glow with hidden fire, almost wistfully; and said with a tinge of sadness, "You will feel very differently I fear, twenty years hence. Enthusiasm is a rare thing in the city, and I imagine it is soon quenched everywhere." "So it is; it needs constant rekindling." Just then Mrs. Marchmont and Mr. Dimmerly appeared, and soon after they all sat down to a late breakfast. CHAPTER VI. A SLEIGH-RIDE AND SOMETHING MORE. Lottie assumed an unusual degree of gayety during the early part of the meal, but her flow of spirits seemed unequal, and to flag towards the last. She had sudden fits of abstraction, during which her jetty eyebrows contracted into unwonted frowns. Her practical joke did not promise so well as on the evening before. That unexpected half-hour's talk had shown some actions in a new light. She did not mind doing wicked things that had a spice of hardihood and venturesomeness in them. But to do what had been made to appear mean and dishonorable was another thing, and she was provoked enough at Hemstead for having unconsciously given that aspect to her action and character, and still more annoyed and perplexed that her conscience should so positively side with him. Thus it will be seen that her conscience was unawakened, rather than seared and deadened.