Lydia did well at school, though she still was an isolated little figure among her schoolmates. The cooking teacher added sewing to the course, after Christmas, and Lydia took up "over and over stitch" at the point where her gentle mother had left off five years before. She progressed so famously that by the time school closed she had learned how to use a shirtwaist pattern and how to fit a simple skirt. With her plans for a summer of dress-making she looked with considerable equanimity on the pretty spring wardrobes of her schoolmates. They saw less than ever of Levine when summer came, for he was beginning his campaign for Congressman. He came out occasionally on Sunday and then he and Lydia would manage a little stroll in the woods or along the lake shore when they would talk over their progress in the Spiritual Traveling they had undertaken in January. Lydia had decided to give the churches a chance and was deliberately attending one Sunday School after another, studying each one with a child's simple sincerity. One source of relief to Lydia during the summer was that Mrs. Marshall and Margery spent two months in the East. Lydia had faithfully kept in touch with Margery ever since her promise had been given to Dave Marshall. But she did not like the banker's daughter--nor her mother. So again as far as playmates were concerned Lydia spent a solitary summer. Yet she was not lonely. Never before had the lake seemed so beautiful to her. Sitting on the little pier with Adam while her father worked in his garden, she watched the sunset across the water, night after night. There was nothing that seemed to bring her nearer to a sense of God than this. Night after night the miracle, always the same, always different. The sun slipped down behind the distant hills, the clouds turned purple in the Western hill tops, fading toward the zenith to an orange that turned to azure as she watched. The lake beneath painted the picture again, with an added shimmer, a more mysterious glow. Little fish flashed like flecks of gold from the water, dropping back in a shower of amethyst. Belated dragon flies darted home. And the young girl watching, listening, waiting, felt her spirit expand to a demand greater than she could answer. Amos was keenly interested in Levine's campaign. His attitude toward politics was curiously detached, when one considered that he was saturated with information--both as to state and national politics. He was vicious in his criticism of the Democrats, ardent in his support of the Republicans, yet it never seemed to occur to him that it was his political duty to do anything more than talk. He seemed to feel that his ancestors in helping to launch the government had forever relieved him from any duty more onerous than that of casting a vote.