"Confound that Chautauqua scheme!" Col. Baker said, kicking an innocent hassock half across the room with his indignant foot. "That is where all these new ideas started. I wish there was a law against fanaticism. Those young women of strong mind and disagreeable manners are getting a most uncomfortable influence over her, too. If I were you, Charlie, I would try to put an end to that intimacy." Charlie whistled softly. "Which do you mean?" he asked at last. "The Erskine girl, or the Wilbur one? I tell you, Baker, with all the years of your acquaintance, you don't know that little Flossy as well as you think you do. Let me tell you, my man, there is something about her, or in her, that is capable of development, and that is being developed (or I am mistaken), that will make her the leader, in a quiet way, of a dozen decided and outspoken girls like those two, and of several men like yourself besides, if she chooses to lead you." "Well, confound the development then! I liked her better as she was before." "More congenial, I admit; at least I should think so; but not half so interesting to watch. I have real good times now. I am continually wondering what she will do next." [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XI. THE NEXT THING. WHAT she did next that night was to sit with her elbows in her lap, and her chin resting on her hands, and stare into vacancy for half an hour. She was very much bewildered. Col. Baker had awakened a train of thought that would never slumber again. He need not hope for such a thing. Her brother Charlie saw deeper into her nature than she did herself. She was tenacious of an idea; she had grasped at this one, which, of itself, would perhaps never have occurred to her. Hitherto she had played at cards as she had played on the piano or worked at her worsted cats and dogs, or frittered away an evening in the smallest of small talk, or done a hundred other things, without thought of results, without so much as realizing that there were such things as results connected with such trifling commonplaces. At least, so far as the matter of cards was concerned, she would never do so again. Her quiet had been disturbed. The process of reasoning by which she found herself disturbed was very simple. She had discovered, as if by accident, that her pastor; as she loved to call Dr. Dennis, lingering on the word, now that it had such a new meaning for her, disapproved of card-playing, not only for himself, but for her; at least that Col. Baker so supposed. Now there must be some foundation for this belief of his. Either there was something in the nature of the game which Col. Baker recognized, and which she did not, that made him understand, as by instinct, that it would be disapproved by Dr. Dennis, or else he had heard him so express himself, or else he was totally mistaken, and was misrepresenting that gentleman's character.