"I know," said Eurie, speaking with unusual thoughtfulness; "but suppose you _were_ dull in the class, if it were known after all that you could make the most brilliant philosophical experiments you would probably be listened to with respect." "What do you mean?" asked Marion bewildered. "Why, I mean that Deacon Pembrook can perform the experiments successfully. In other words, to come down to your comprehension, he succeeds in living so pure and careful a Christian life that he has the respect and confidence of everybody. What if he can't preach? He can practice. However, I am willing to admit that the dear old man would be more edifying if he would study his lesson a little. Wasn't it funny to think of calling that 'teaching?'" And then this volatile young lady laughed. But her moralizing had done Marion good. She said good-morning more cheerily, and went on her way thinking over the many things that she had heard in honor of Deacon Pembrook; so that by the time she had reached her boarding-house, although his teaching would certainly make a very poor show, yet his sweet Christian life had come up to plead for him, and Marion was forced to feel that the truth had "made him free." "But it is a real pity not to study his lesson," she said, as she went about her gloomy-looking room. "Those girls didn't get a single idea to help them in any way. Some of them need ideas badly enough. Two or three of them are members of the church, I am sure. That Allie March is, but she has no ideas on _any_ subject; you can see that in the grammar class." And then Marion remembered that Allie March was in _her_ grammar class; and Allie was a professed Christian. Could _she_ help her? It was not pride in Marion, but she had to smile at the thought of herself being helped by so very third-rate a brain as that which Allie March possessed. And then she paused, with her hand on the clothes-press door, and her face glowed at the new and surprising thought that just then came to her. "Would it not be possible for her, Marion Wilbur, to help Allie March, even in her Christian life!" All that afternoon, though, she went about or sat down in her room with a sense of loneliness. No one to speak to who could understand and would believe in her, even in the Sunday-school they were afraid of her. How could she help or be helped, while this state of things lasted?