"Well, Mr. Alger, all I have to say is, that if you encourage such sort of people, you will have enough of it. That is the worst of these outside and out of the way meetings. They draw in all the riffraff of the community. * If only the respectable people will come, it would be very well." * This is no exaggeration. "Inasmuch as there is joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance, perhaps that may be an effect of outside meetings not altogether displeasing to him who has promised to be in the midst of us," said Mr. Alger, mildly. Mr. Heminway deigned no answer, but walked away. "Well, for my part, I was downright glad to see the poor young fellow come in," said Mr. Davis, a small, plain man, who rented one of Miss Priscilla's farms. "Tom Edgar was just one of the nicest little boys that ever lived to begin with, but he hadn't much chance. His father never spoke a kind word to him, and whipped him half to death for every little fault, and his stepmother, who was young and a kind-hearted little thing, thought to make it up by indulging him in everything, and covering up his faults just as far as she could. Tom ain't altogether bad. Don't you remember how he risked his life nursing that poor creature that had the fever up in the woods here?" "I must try to have a talk with him," said the minister. "Who was that very pretty girl who sat near the desk and seemed so much affected?" "Oh, that was old Miss Stanfield's niece," said Mr. Heminway, who had rejoined the group. "That was Miss Calista Stanfield, daughter of Mr. Richard, and granddaughter of old General Stanfield of the mansion house," said Cassius, with a glance of severe rebuke at the first speaker. "She is as fine a young lady as any in the country." "That she is," rejoined Mr. Davis. "I wish her aunt was only half as much of a lady. I wonder why Miss Druett wasn't down. I kind of thought she would be." "Oh, she's sick abed with a cold. As to Miss Priscilla, I should think the millennium was coming sure enough if I should see her in a religious meeting. Well, Mr. Alger, I'm sure we have had a profitable time to-night, and I hope it may be the beginning of better things." Calista went home as it were on wings. She hardly felt the ground on which she trod. The whole world seemed changed to her. Here was the Friend, the Protector, the Helper, the Physician, she needed, all in one. She had been walking in darkness, and here was light; hungry and thirsty, and here was the bread and the water of life; shut in with bolts and bars, and here was the deliverer who had broken the gates of brass and burst the bars of iron asunder, and the guide who would lead and teach her in the way she should go. She had been fighting with what she knew to be sin, and here was one who came before her saying, gently,— "'Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.'