and Lorena are joined by the said "Jim." And be it noticed that he makes the first remark on the sermon that has been heard as yet.

"We had a stunning sermon this morning, didn't we?"

"Oh, you shocking fellow!" murmurs Lorena "How can you use such rough words?"

"What words!' Stunning?' Why, dear me, that is a jolly word; so expressive. I say, you sheep in this fold took it pretty hard. A fellow might be almost glad of being a goat, I think."

"Jim, don't be wicked," puts in Miss Lily who has a cousinship in the said Jim, and therefore can afford to be brusque. Jim shrugs his shoulders.

"Wicked," he says. "If the preacher is to be credited, it is you folks who are wicked. I don't pretend, you know, to be anything else."

A change of subject seems to the fair Lorena to be desirable, so she says:

"Why were you not at the hop last night, Mr. Merchant?"

And Jim replies, "I didn't get home in time. I was at the races. I hear you had a stunning—I beg your pardon—a perfectly splendid time. Those are the right words, I believe."

And then the two ladies gathered their silken trains into an aristocratic grasp of the left hand, and sailed down town on either side of "Jim" to continue the conversation. And those coral lips had but just sung—

          "My thoughts lie open to the Lord,
             Before they're formed within;
           And ere my lips pronounce the word
             He knows the sense I mean."

What could He have thought of her? Is it not strange that she did not ask this of herself.

"How are you to-day?" Mr. Jackson asked, shaking his old acquaintance, Mr. Dunlap, heartily by the hand. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

Now, what will be the next sentence from the lips of those gray-headed men, standing in the sanctuary, with the echo of solemn service still in their ears? Listen:

"Splendid weather for crops. A man with such a farm as mine on his hands, and so backward with his work, rather grudges such Sundays as these this time of year."

And the other?

"Yes," he says, laughing, "you could spare the time better if it rained, I dare say. By the way, Dunlap, have you sold that horse yet? If not, you better make up your mind to let me have it at the price I named. You won't do better than that this fell."

Whereupon ensued a discussion on the respective merits and demerits, and the prospective rise and fall in horse-flesh.

"Take heed what ye do; let the fear of the Lord be upon you." Had those two gentlemen heard that text?

CHAPTER II.

SOME PEOPLE WHO FORGOT THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.

Let me introduce to you the Harrison dinner-table, and the people gathered there on the afternoon of that Sabbath day. Miss Lily had brought home with her her cousin Jim; he was privileged on the score of relationship. Miss Helen, another daughter of the house, had invited Mr. Harvey Latimer; he was second cousin to Kate's husband, and Kate was a niece of Mrs. Harrison; relationship again. Also, Miss Fannie and Miss Cecilia Lawrence were there, because they were schoolgirls, and so lonely in boarding-school on Sunday, and their mother was an old friend of Mrs. Harrison; there are always reasons for things.

The dinner-table was a marvel of culinary skill. Clearly Mrs. Harrison's cook was not a church-goer. Roast turkey, and chicken-pie, and all the side dishes attendant upon both, to say nothing of the rich and carefully prepared dessert, of the nature that indicated that its flankiness was not developed on Saturday, and left to wait for Sunday. Also, there was wine on Mrs. Harrison's table; just a little home-made wine, the rare juice of the grape prepared by Mrs. Harrison's own cook—not at all the sort of wine that others indulged in—the Harrisons were temperance people.

"I invited Dr. Selmser down to dinner," remarked Mrs. Harrison, as she sipped her coffee. "I thought since his wife was gone, it would be only common courtesy to invite him in to get a warm dinner, but he declined; he said his Sunday dinners were always very simple."

Be it known to you that Dr. Selmser was Mrs. Harrison's pastor, and the preacher of the morning sermon.

Miss Lily arched her handsome eyebrows.

"Oh, mamma!" she said, "how could you be guilty of such a sin! The idea of Dr. Selmser going out to dinner on Sunday! I wonder he did not drop down in a faint! Papa, did you ever hear such a sermon?"

"It slashed right and left, that is a fact," said Mr. Harrison, between the mouthfuls of chicken salad and oyster pickle.

"A little too sweeping in its scope to be wise for one in his position. Have another piece of the turkey, James? He is running into that style a little too much. Some person whose opinion has weight ought to warn him. A minister loses influence pretty rapidly who meddles with everything."

"Well, there was everything in that sermon," said Miss Cecilia. "I just trembled in my shoes at one time. I expected our last escapade in the school hall would be produced to point one of his morals."

"You admit that it would have pointed it?" said the cousin Jim, with a meaning laugh.

"Oh, yes; it was awfully wicked; I'll admit that. But one didn't care to hear it rehearsed in a church."

"That is the trouble," mamma Harrison said. "Little nonsenses that do very well among schoolgirls, or in the way of a frolic, are not suited to illustrate a sermon with. I think Dr. Selmser is rather apt to forget the dignity of the pulpit in his illustrations."

"Lorena says he utterly spoiled the closing anthem by that doleful hymn he gave out," said Miss Lily. "They were going to give that exquisite bit from the last sacred opera, but the organist positively refused to play it after such woe-begone music. I wish we had a new hymn-book, without any of those horrid, old-fashioned hymns in it, anyhow."

It was Mr. Harvey Latimer's turn to speak:

"Oh, well now, say what you please, Selmser can preach. He may not suit one's taste always, Especially when you get hit; but he has a tremendous way of putting things. Old Professor Marker says he has more power over language than any preacher in the city."

"Yes," said Mr. Harrison, struggling with too large a mouthful of turkey, "he is a preacher, whatever else may be said about him; and yet of course it is unfortunate for a minister to be always pitching into people; they get tired of it after a while."

"Jim, did you know that Mrs. Jamison was going to give a reception to the bride next Wednesday evening?" This from Lily.

"No; is she? That will be a grand crush, I suppose."

"I heard her giving informal invitations in church to-day," Helen said, and one of the schoolgirls said:

"Oh, don't you think she said she was going to invite us? Celia told her to send the invitation to you, Mrs. Harrison. We felt sure you would ask us to your house to spend the evening; Madam Wilcox will always allow that. But there is no use trying to get her permission for a party. You will ask us, won't you?"

Whereupon Mrs. Harrison laughed, and shook her head at them, and told them she was afraid they were naughty girls, and she would have to think about it. All of which seemed to be entirely satisfactory