I thought of the dark stranger, and felt that he was right, but I said nothing, and he went on; “Sometimes I thought I’d go up to Meadow Brook, tell Anna all about it, ask her to marry me, and so settle the matter at once; but then I did not know but she might have grown up raw, awkward, and disagreeable, so I devised a plan by which I could find out. Mother would burn her right hand off I believe, to save me from a drunkard’s grave, and when I wish to win her consent to any particular thing, all I have to do is to threaten her with the wine-cup.” “Oh, Herbert! how can you?” I exclaimed, for I was inexpressibly shocked. “It’s a way I’ve got into,” said he, laughing at my rueful face. “And when I suggested that Anna should spend the winter here, I hinted to the old lady that if she didn’t consent, I’d go off with a party of young men on a hunting excursion. Of course she yielded at once, for she well knew that if I joined my former boon companions, I should fall. “And so we are indebted to you for our winter in Boston,” said I, beginning to see things in a new light. “Why no, not wholly,” he answered; “mother consented much easier than I supposed she would. The fact is, she’s changed some since she was at Meadow Brook. She’s joined the Episcopal Church, and though that in my estimation don’t amount to much, of course, she has to do better, for it wouldn’t answer for a professor to put on so many airs.” As the daughter of a deacon, I felt it incumbent upon me to reprove the thoughtless young man, but it did no good, for he proceeded to say, “It’s all true, and there’s only one denomination who are sincere in what they profess, and that’s the Methodist. They carry their religion into their whole life, while the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Baptists sit on different sides of the fence, and quarrel like fun about High Church and Low, Old School and New, close communion and open communion, and all that sort of thing. I tell you, Rose, if I am ever converted—and mother thinks I will be—I shall be a roaring Methodist, and ride the Circuit at once!” I was unused to the world, and had never heard any one speak thus lightly of religion; but I knew not what to say, so I kept silence, while he continued, “But I am rambling from my subject. Mother _is_ a different woman, if she does _read_ her prayers; and as she has never known a word about my writing to Anna, she consented to her coming, without much trouble, saying she would try to make it pleasant for her, and proposing that you too should accompany her, and go to school. You can’t imagine how delighted I was to find Anna what she is, and from the moment I met her in the parlor, Ada Montrose’s destiny, so far as I am concerned, was decreed; that is, if I can secure your sister; and I think I shall have no difficulty in so doing, for notwithstanding her affected coolness, it is easy to see that I am not indifferent to her.”