"That?" says Cousin E. E., a-lifting up both hands, as if I'd done something dreadful. "That is the holy wafer." "The what, Cousin E. E.?" "The body of our Saviour." "Oh, cousin, how can you?" says I, a-feeling myself grow cold all over. "It is so, Phœmie. As yet you may not understand the mystery, but in time you will see it." I couldn't answer her, she was in such solemn earnest; but then and there I made up my mind that we should have to talk over that matter in earnest before long, for I felt the Pilgrim blood riling up in my bosom. "Do Episcopalians believe that?" says I. "Those that take a high stand do," says she. "Well," says I, "we won't talk that over just now. But whose boys were those that swung the lamps and stood round the altar?" "Oh, those were the acolytes." "Any relations to the boys we saw at morning service?" says I. "Oh, they are all the same." "Mercy on me!" says I; "what a large family of boys--and so near of an age, too!" E. E. lifted her head and gave me the ghost of a smile--that was all. I believe she felt that talking was a sin just then, and I felt a little that way myself. "That music was splendid," says I, "and the flowers. I don't think I ever was in any meeting-house that seemed so close to heaven. But then I always had a hankering after such things. And why not? If God gives us music and flowers, light and sweet odors, can it be wrong to render them back to him? Cousin, I never knew what power there was in such things till now." "Phœmie," says she--and a queer smile came over her face--"I shouldn't wonder if you go back, at last, a High Church woman. Then what would the Society say?" I felt myself turning red--as if I, Phœmie Frost, could change in the religion of my forefathers! "No," says I; "there I am firm as a rock; but with firmness, I hope, cousin, that I join toleration. It seems to me that our Pilgrim Fathers made a mistake when they expected all mankind to think with them, and another mistake when they put aside the holiest and most solemnly beautiful days of all the year--those upon which our blessed Lord was born, suffered, and ascended into heaven. L. THAT MAN WITH THE LANTERN. Dear sisters:--I am back in Washington. So is Cousin E. E. and Dempster, who has got a case before Congress; and when a man has that he just makes up his mind to take permanent lodgings in a sleeping-car, and make his home by daytime in a railroad section. You never saw anything like the hurry in which such men live. As for the married ones, their wives scarcely see them at all unless they catch 'em flying with a railroad ticket in one hand, and a carpet-bag, swelled out like an apple-dumpling, in the other. To us women this kind of life is tantalizing--very.