From chains that have bound us So long in the service of sin;

From the fever and fretting,
The striving and getting,

We may turn to this heaven within.

When comforts are flying And friendships are dying, And the false overshadows the true; In the midst of thy praying The Master is saying,

"My peace I give unto you."

When youth with its vigor

Is gone, and the rigor

Of winter seems bitter and cold,
Thy heart may be glowing
With life ever flowing

From fountains that never grow old.

-J. Holbrook Whitney.

again. That experience had come to Myra that afternoon.

It had all been ridiculously foolish. Tom had scoffed at her for having joined the Browning club, declaring Browning to be a prize puzzler and not a poet. She had taken offense, and they had their first quarrel. She had given back his ring and he had gone off in dudgeon, leaving her with the afternoon on her hands. They had planned to skate to Riverdale, five miles up the river; have supper there and skate back by moonlight. Now it was all spoiled and she must skate alone.

She was fond of the ice, and the swift motion and the bracing air soon put her in a more pleasant frame of mind. Perhaps she had been hasty in giving back the ring, but then it is not every day that

one is elected the president of the literary club, and he might at least have congratulated her upon her victory over Nettie Doran.

She had been so engrossed with her thoughts that it was with surprise that she found she had entered the "cut," more than two miles from the landing. Here the river ran between steep bluffs for three-quarters of a mile and she shuddered a little as she glanced at the cliffs on either side. She never had noticed it before, but now they seemed so black and forbidding.

She was still glancing up as her skate struck a bit of wood frozen into the ice, and with a cry she sank to the glassy surface. She struggled to her feet, but with another little moan she sank to one knee; she had sprained her left ankle.

Several times she essayed to rise, but each time her ankle hurt her more, and finally she desisted and crept on hands and knees to the bank. Perhaps some of the others would take it into their heads to skate up and they would give her help. If no one came she would try to creep back after she had rested.

But after an hour she gave up hope of help coming. She was so numb she could scarcely move. She began to cry softly. If she could not get to the lower end of the cut, where she might attract attention of some one on shore, she might freeze to death.

With infinite labor she crawled a few feet, but she had to give up and sit down again. Perhaps they might miss her at the landing and remember that she had gone up the river. They would send out a searching party for her. It might be an hour or more before she could hope for help, but the idea brought her some comfort, though it did not check the flow of tears.

Then her quick ear caught the welcome sound of the ring of steel on the hard ice and she tried to struggle to her feet.

Around the bend above, Tom Runyon came with powerful strokes. He was looking straight ahead, and in the dusk he passed her. She waved a signal to attract his attention, but before she could gain the courage to call to him he stopped suddenly and turned. In a flash he was at her side, kneeling before her.

"What's the matter, dear?" he asked. "Are you hurt?"

"I've sprained my ankle," she sobbed, "and I'm tired and cold and hungry, and it hurts an awful lot. I'm so miserable." How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Hours," "she moaned. "It seems like days, and it's so black and lonesome."

"Poor little girl!" he said tenderly. "I'll soon have you out of it. I'll skate

down to the landing and borrow a sled."

She grasped his coat in terror. "Don't leave me!" she pleaded. "I think I would go crazy!"

"It would take only ten minutes or so," he argued, but she kept a convulsive hold upon his coat. Presently an idea struck him.

"Can yon stand on your other foot?" he asked. "Will it bear your weight?"

For answer she put out her hands, and he helped her to rise. She winced as the

bass drum fell on his ears. Above the din sounded shrill voices, quavering a hýmn. He had never yet attended a street corner service of the Salvation Army, and it struck him that this would be an excellent opportunity to do so. He quickened his steps and soon came upon them, men and women alike kneeling on the dirty pavements, while a raucous voiced lieutenant offered a prayer. A flaring gasoline torch on a nearby fruit stand lighted the scene uncannily and threw into flickering relief the faces of varied types crowded about the kneeling figures.

Mather was country born and bred.

the second floor he found it a veritable oven. Sleep in that place was out of the question. He turned out the single gas jet and went down to the street. On the stoop were noisy, chattering groups, waiting vainly for a breeze from the water. There was much banter between the occupants of neighboring stoops and much high pitched laughter. The steps of his own lodging house, like the rest, bore its quota, but he felt no inclination to join them. Instead he walked out to the avenue and turned aimlessly down town.

He had proceeded but a short distance when the strident notes of a cornet and trombone and the pulsating boom of a

Years of life on the farm had given him a big frame and a pair of shoulders that many an athlete might have envied. It was an easy matter for him to elbow his way through the crowd to the inner edge of the circle, where he stood quietly watching the little drama before him with mild curiosity and even milder amusement.

The prayer finished, the little band arose, and the men replaced their caps. The lieutenant announced a hymn, the cornet squealed, the trombone brayed, the drum boomed valiantly, and the quavering voices rose once more on the hot night air.

At the conclusion of the hymn the lieu

tenant announced that they would listen to a few words from Sister Ruth. A slight, girlish figure stepped to the center of the circle from somewhere in the shadow. The light of the gasoline torch fell full upon her face-a face of wonderfal purity and sweetness. There was a beauty in the level brows, the long dark lashes of the eyes and the full, red lips that the bonnet of the corps could not hide, and there was a supple grace of figure that the plain blue dress did not wholly conceal.

She began to speak in a voice full of earnest appeal. What she was saying Mather did not know, for he paid no heed to her words. He was not an impressionable young man-indeed by his friends he was adjudged unusually hard-headed and abundantly possessed of that quality generally termed "horse sense." But there was something that appealed to him strongly in that face beneath the regulation poke bonnet. He did not take his eyes from her while she was speaking, and when she had finished and stepped back into the shadow he was aware of a strange feeling, half of sadness, half of buoyancy. He elbowed his way out and walked homeward strangely perturbed and strangely elated.

The following night and every nightafter that Mather attended the street corner meetings. If Sister Ruth spoke or prayed or sang he was supremely happy; if others filled her place he was aware of a feeling of disappointment. Being unskilled in the analysis of emotion, he did not recognize the trend of it all. He only knew that he wanted to be near her, to see her face, to listen to her voice.

One night as the women of the corps were passing the tambourines for the collection he beheld Sister Ruth coming in his direction through the crowd. She was smiling and nodding gratefully as the nickels and dimes fell jingling into the tambourine. Standing beside Mather were three young fellows evidently the worse for liquor. As Sister Ruth approached them one of the three lifted his foot and kicked the tambourine smartly. "Little h-higher, Gertie. I c'n kick higher 'n th-that," he hiccoughed familiarly.

Mather's hand fell on the fellow's coat collar with a grip of iron.

"Apologize for that! Hear me? Apologize!" he said in a voice shaking with anger.

"Eh? What?" said the other. He looked up at Mather. Mather towered inches above him. There was, moreover, something very sinister in his eyes.

"I 'pologized," began the captive hastily.

Mather felt a light touch on his arm.

Mather climbed the dingy stairs to the little hall at the corps barracks. It was Sunday evening. Outside the rain was falling dismally and the gutters ran rivers of mud. He sat down quite alone on one of the rear settees. A handful of people nearer the platform were the only others in the bare, cheerless place.

There were hymns and prayers and testimony quite as usual, and during it all Mather sat back in the shadows feasting his eyes on the outlines of a pretty face beneath a poke bonnet at one side of the platform.