Flossy raised her eyes and fixed them thoughtfully on Eurie's face, while a flush spread all over her own pretty one. Was it possible that she had helped to foster this taste in Col. Baker. How _many_ evenings she had spent with him in this way. _Was_ he very much addicted to the use of cards, she wondered; that is, outside of their own parlor? Eurie seemed to know something about it. "What makes you think so?" she asked, at last. "Because I know so. He has a great deal to do with Nell's infatuation. He was the very first one with whom Nell ever played for anything but fun. Flossy Shipley, you surely know that he derives a good deal of his income in that way?" "I certainly did _not_ know it," Flossy said, with an increasing glow on her cheeks. The glow was caused by wondering how far her own brother, Charlie, had been led by this man. "Girls," said Marion, concluding that a change of subject would be wise, "wouldn't a Bible reading evening be nice?" "What kind of an evening can that be?" Marion laughed. "Why, a reading together out of the Bible about a certain subject, or subjects, that interested us, and about which we wanted to inform ourselves? Like this, for instance. I presume there are dozens of texts that bear on this very question. It would be nice to go over them together and talk them up." Flossy's eyes brightened. "I would like that exceedingly," she said. "I need the help of you all. I know so very little about the Bible. We have musical evenings, and literary evenings; why not Bible evenings? Let's do it." "Apropos of the subject in hand, before we take up a new one, what do you think of this by way of illustration?" Ruth asked, as she threw down on the table a daintily written epistle. There was an eager grasping after it by this merry trio, and Eurie securing it, read aloud. It was an invitation for the next evening to a select gathering of choice spirits for the purpose of enjoying a social evening at cards. "What do you propose to do with it?" Marion asked, as Eurie balanced the note on her hand with an amused face; the illustration fitted so remarkably into the talk. "Decline it," Ruth said, briefly. And then added, as an after-thought, "I never gave the subject any attention in my life. I am, perhaps, not entirely convinced now, only I see as Flossy does, that I shall certainly do no harm by declining; whereas it seems I may possibly do some by accepting; therefore, of course, the way is clear." She said it with the utmost composure, and it was evident that the idea of such a course being disagreeable to her, or of her considering it a cross to decline, had not occurred to her. She cared nothing at all about these matters, and had only been involved in them as a sort of necessity belonging to society. She was more than willing to be "counted out."