So, when she said to the squire, "Uncle, Mr. North tells me there is to be a very solemn Methodist service to-morrow, and one which I never saw in America; I should like you to leave me at the chapel," he answered: "To be sure, Phyllis. We would go with thee, but there's none but members admitted. I know what service thou means well enough." She found in the chapel about two hundred men and women, for they had come to Hallam from the smaller societies around. They were mostly from what is often called "the lower orders," men and women whose hands were hard with toil, and whose forms were bowed with labor. But what a still solemnity there was in the place! No organ, no dim religious light, no vergers, or beadles, or robed choristers, or priest in sacred vestments. The winter light fell pale and cold through the plain windows on bare white-washed walls, on a raised wooden pulpit, and on pews unpainted and uncushioned. Some of the congregation were very old; some, just in the flush of manhood and womanhood. All were in the _immediate_ presence of God, and were intensely conscious of it. There was a solemn hymn sung and a short prayer; then Mr. North's gaze wandered over the congregation until it rested upon a man in the center--a very old man--with hair as white as wool. "Stephen Langside, can you stand up before God and man to-day?" The old man rose, and, supported by two young farmers, lifted-up a face full of light and confidence. "They tell me that you are ninety-eight years old, and that this is the seventy-first time that you will renew your covenant with the eternal Father. Bear witness this day of him." "His word is sure as t' everlasting hills! I hev been young, and now I'm old, and I hev hed a deal to do wi' him, and he hes hed a deal to do for me; and he nivver hes deceived me, and he hes nivver failed me, and he has nivver turned t' cold shoulder to me; ay, and he hes stuck up to his promises, when I was none ready to keep mine. There's many good masters, but he is t' best Master of a'! There's many true friends, but he is the truest of a'! Many a kind father, but no father so kind as him! I _know_ whom I hev believed, and I can trust him even unto death!" "Brothers and sisters, this is the Master, the Friend, the Father, whom I ask you to enter into covenant with to-day--a holy solemn covenant, which you shall kneel down and make upon your knees, and stand up and ratify in the sight of angels and of men." Not ignorantly did Phyllis enter into this covenant with her Maker. She had read it carefully over, and considered well its awful solemnity. Slowly the grand abnegation, the solemn engagement, was formed; every sentence recited without haste, and with full consciousness of all its obligations. Then Mr. North, after a short pause for mental examination, said: