Her father took sufficient notice of it to make one or two efforts to agreeably supply his place, and failing in that, assured his daughter that rather than have her disappointed, he would have planned to accompany her himself if he had known of Mr. Wayne's absence in time. The actual cross that it would have been to explain to her father that she did not desire to go, and the reasons therefor, she did not take up; but the occurrence served to annoy her. Two days afterward she was busy all the morning with her dressmaker, getting a special dress ready for a wedding among the upper circles. She had been hurried and worried, and was as nearly out of patience as her calmness ever allowed her to be. Still she remembered that it was the prayer-meeting evening, that she should see Dr. Dennis, and that he would be likely to ask her about the people on that list. She ought to go that afternoon, and try what she could do. Once since her call on Dr. Dennis she had met him as he was going down Clinton Street, and he had turned and joined her for a few steps, while he said: "I have been thinking about another friend of yours, that I should be very glad to see influenced in the right direction. His sister is trying, I presume; but other people's sisters some times have an influence. Young Mitchell, the doctor's son, is a young man of real promise; he ought to be on the Lord's side." "You are mistaken in supposing him to be a friend of mine," Ruth said, with promptness and emphasis. "We have the most distant speaking acquaintance only, and I have a dislike for him amounting to absolute aversion." There was that in Ruth Erskine's voice when she chose to let it appear that said, "My aversion is a very serious and disagreeable thing." "Yes," the Doctor said, quietly, as one in no degree surprised or disturbed; "yet he has a soul to be saved, and the Lord Jesus Christ died to save him." There was no denying this; and certainly it would not look well in her to say that she had no desire to have part in his salvation; so she kept silence. But there followed her a disagreeable remembrance of having negatived every proposition whereby the doctor had hoped to set her at work. She decided, disagreeable as it was, to make a vigorous assault on those families, thereby showing him what she could do. To this end she arrayed herself in immaculate calling attire--with a rustle of silk and a softness of ruffle, and a daintiness of glove that none but the wealthy can assume, and, in short, with that unmistakable air about every thing pertaining to her that marks the lady of fashion. These things were as much a part of Ruth Erskine as her hair and eyes were. Once ready, her dress, perhaps, gave her as little thought as her eyes or hair did. But she looked as though that must have been the sole object of thought and study in order to produce such perfect results.