"Well," said Alice, "we are going to press you and Mr. Fellows, here, into the service of the church." "Shall be perfectly enchanted!" said Jim. "If the church only knew my energies, they would have tried to get me long before." "Then," said Eva, "you must go with us to-morrow evening; for we are going to be up all night, about the floral decorations of our church for Easter morning. Oh! you have no idea what splendid things we are going to do. We shall be at work hard, all day to-morrow, upon our wreaths and crosses; and the things must all be put up late at night so as to keep them from withering. Then, you know, we must be out again to the sunrise service." "Why," said I, "it is a regular piece of dissipation." "Certainly,--religious dissipation, you know," said Alice. "Well," said Eva, "I don't know why we should not be up all night to dress the church, for once in our lives, as well as to be up all night dancing the German. Ida says it is wicked to do either. Ida makes a perfect hobby of everybody's keeping their health." "Yes, but," said I, "if people keep themselves, generally, in temperance and soberness, they can afford a great strain, now and then, if it be for a good purpose." "At any rate," said Eva, "you and Mr. Fellows come round and take tea with us and help us carry our trophies to the church." CHAPTER XXVI. COUSIN CAROLINE AGAIN. About this time I received the following letter from my Cousin Caroline: "_Dear Cousin_:--I have had no time to keep up correspondence with anybody for the past year. The state of my father's health has required my constant attention, day and night, to a degree that has absorbed all my power, and left no time for writing. For the last six months father has been perfectly helpless with the most distressing form of chronic rheumatism. His sufferings have been protracted and intense, so that it has been wearing even to witness them; and the utmost that I could do seemed to bring very little relief. And when, at last, death closed the scene, it seemed to be in mercy, putting an end to sufferings which were intolerable.