"No," said Elsie, her courage and her color rising. "I think it is a serpent. Thank you, Mr. Vance; I don't want the thing again. I have had quite too much of it. You must all excuse me from farther reading of that book. I am not in sympathy with the morals or the manners of its characters. I am ashamed that I have allowed myself to read it so long." "I'll venture that it is another case of 'soiled hands,'" Ben said, nothing but amusement in his voice. His cousin turned toward him with flashing eyes. "Yes," she said, "it is." CHAPTER IV. THEN began a babel of tongues. The book was "elegant!" "Charming!" Everybody said it was the best one from that popular writer's pen. The "critics were just raving over it." "Certainly it was written in a most fascinating manner." These were some of the statements which Elsie seemed to be expected to answer. She had very little to say. The truth was, she felt painfully conscious of the fact that many of her arguments would sound to this company like an unknown tongue. What did they know of loyalty to the Master who owned her, heart and hands? What wild fanaticism would they think it, if she said that she felt herself to have dishonored Christ, in having lent her hands and her voice to the book which she had just dropped? Yet she said this, speaking steadily, albeit with glowing cheeks. She felt it to be the least that she could do, as His witness, to speak the simple truth, and bear the storm of words, the incredulity, the laughter, the raillery; and the almost more disagreeable attempt to be patient with her, as with an ignorant child, fresh from country life and country ideas. "Oh, well!" said Carrie, at last. "We might as well save our breath, as to coax her after she has made up her mind. You always were an obstinate child, you know, Elsie, my dear. Ben, suppose you read." "Not I," said Ben, with emphasis. "It is my brains, instead of my hands, that I am afraid of; I never had the proper amount to bear me out in reading aloud. Vance, will you volunteer?" An expressive shrug of shapely shoulders was the young man's only reply, but it seemed to be considered decisive. "Then we must give it up," Carrie said, great vexation in her voice. "What shall we do? I'm too dull to talk. Oh, I'll tell you, let's have a game. Freem Vance, I owe you a grudge for beating me, the last time we played. Get the cards, Ben, and I'll see if I cannot redeem my reputation in that line." Ben laughed good-humoredly, but made no attempt to obey. "You are dull to-night, Carrie, duller than usual, that's a fact, if you have any idea that our fair cousin will let her hands go so far astray as to dabble with cards." "Well, I should like to know why not. There is no irreligion about them, certainly, poor little innocent things! Elsie, you will play a game with us, won't you?" "Thank you," Elsie said, trying to make her voice sound natural; "I never play cards."