He went to the First Church prayer-meeting for the first time with no higher motive than that--never mind, he went. Flossy Shipley certainly was not responsible for the motive of his going; neither did it in any degree affect the honest, earnest, persistent effort she had made that day. Her account of it was simple enough, when the girls met afterward to talk over their efforts. "Why, you know," she said, "I actually _promised_ to bring some one with me if I possibly could; so there was nothing for it but to try in every possible way up to the very last minute of the time I had. But, after all, I brought the one whom I had not the least idea of asking; he asked himself." "Well," Marion said, after a period of amazed silence, "I have made two discoveries. One is, that people may possibly have tried before this to enlarge the prayer-meeting; possibly we may not, after all, be the originators of that brilliant idea; they may have tried, and failed even as we did; for I have learned that it is not so easy a matter as it at first appears; it needs a power behind the wills of people to get them to do even so simple a thing as that. The other important thought is, there are two ways of keeping a promise; one is to make an attempt and fail, saying to our contented consciences, 'There! I've done my duty, and it is no use you see;' and the other is to persist in attempt after attempt, until the very pertinacity of our faith accomplishes the work for us. What if we follow the example of our little Flossy after this, and let a promise mean something?" "My example!" Flossy said, with wide open eyes. "Why, I only _asked_ people, just as I said I would; but they wouldn't come." There was one young lady who walked home from that eventful prayer-meeting with a very unsatisfied conscience. Ruth Erskine could not get away from the feeling that she was a shirker; all the more so, because the person who had sat very near her was her father! not brought there by any invitation from her; it was not that she had tried and failed; that form of it would have been an infinite relief; she simply had not tried, and she made herself honestly confess to herself that the trouble was, she could not be satisfied with one who was within the reach of her asking. Yet conscience, working all alone, is a very uncomfortable and disagreeable companion, and often accomplishes for the time being nothing beyond making his victim disagreeable. This was Ruth to the fullest extent of her power; she realized it, and in a measure felt ashamed of herself, and struggled a little for a better state of mind.