Four Girls at Chautauqua

It was not so very dark after all, nor so disagreeable as she had imagined. She sat curled up in a heap on the deck of the Col. Phillips, looking with interested eyes on the gro...

As for Ruth Erskine, if she had been asked whether she was enjoying the day, she would hardly have known what answer to make; she could not even tell why the excursion was not i...

"Well, why not?" she said, as she went slowly down the aisle. Of course all these people would be in heaven together, and why should they not look forward to a companionship unt...

Eurie Mitchell shut the door with a bang and ran up the stairs two steps at a time. She nearly always banged doors, and was always in a hurry. She tapped firmly at the door just...

"He doesn't look in the least as I thought he did." It was Eurie who whispered this, and she nudged Marion's arm by way of emphasis as she did it.

It is not so easy to get away from ones self as you might think, if you never had occasion to try it. Ruth Erskine--who honestly thought herself on the high road to heaven becau...

Marion struck out into the darkness, caring little which way she went; she had rarely been so wrought upon; her veins seemed to glow with fire. What difference did it make? she...

"What about Saratoga?" was Eurie's first query as she awoke to life and talk again on that summer morning. "Do you think you will take the 10:50 train, Ruth?"

"What is your private explanation of the word 'hotel'?" Marion asked. She was in an argumentative mood, and it made almost no difference to her which side of the question she ar...

When people start out with the express design of having a good time, irrespective of other people's plans or feelings--in short, with a general forgetfulness of the existence of...

"This day is to be devoted conscientiously to the legitimate business that brought me to this region. Yesterday's report will have to be copied from the Buffalo papers, or made...

"If there was only some one to ask, some one to say a word to me," she sighed to herself. "It seems as though I could never go to sleep with this feeling clinging to me. I wonde...

Now, see here, Marion Wilbur, wake up and give me your attention. I want to make a speech; I've caught the infection. It's queer in a place where there is so much speech-making...

"It is very queer," she said, "that as soon as ever I make up my mind to be orthodox, and go to meeting every time the bell rings, I should be dumped into a heap on this hard be...

"Girls!" said Eurie, as she munched a doughnut, which she had brought from the lunch-table with her, and lounged on a camp-chair, waiting for the afternoon service, "do you know...

Marion went alone to the services the next morning. It was in vain that she assured Eurie that Miss Morris was going to conduct one of the normal classes, and that she had heard...

Rev. Dr. Dennis and Rev. Mr. Harrison met just at the corner of Howard and Clinton Streets, and stopped for a chat. Dr. Dennis was pastor of the First Church, and Mr. Harrison w...

Meantime Flossy Shipley came to no place where her heart could rest. She went through that first day at Chautauqua in a sort of maze, hearing and yet not hearing, and longing in...

That Bible reading! I wish I could make it appear to you as it did to Flossy Shipley. Not that either, because I trust that the sound of the Bible verses is not so utterly new t...

By the next morning it became clear to our girls that a change of programme was a necessity. Ruth had by no means recovered from her shock and the sleepless night that followed,...

You must constantly remember the entire ignorance of these girls on all names and topics that pertained to the religious world. Ruth knew indeed that the gentleman in question w...

It required Flossy's eyes and heart both to keep watch of her boy during the progress of that meeting. The novelty of the scene, the strangeness of seeing ladies occupying the s...

Ruth Erskine, with her skirts gathered daintily around her, to avoid contact with the unclean earth, made her way skill fully through the crowd, and with the aid of a determined...

It is a queer thought, not to say a startling one, what very trifles about us are constantly giving object lessons on our characters. Those four girls, as they arranged themselv...

Meantime Flossy, deserted by her companion, made her way somewhat timidly down to the stand, amazed by the great congregation of people who had formed themselves into a Sunday-s...

"As I pass it, I am reminded of another and a different rest: the rest from every burden, every anxiety, every pain, every sin; who has rested in those everlasting arms? There i...

It is a troublesome fact that, even when people are very much interested, and very eager over important themes, commonplace and comparatively trivial duties, will intrude, and i...

The next morning every one of them ran away from the meeting. The way of it was this: as they came up from breakfast and stood at the tent-door discussing the question whether t...

Meantime, this day, which was to be so fraught with consequences to Marion, was on Eurie's hands to dispose of as best she could. To be at Chautauqua, and to be bent on having n...

It was almost over. Dr. Deems sat down amid the hush of hearts, and all the people seemed to feel that no more words were needed. Yet, the next moment, they greeted Frank Beard...

"I started for the auditorium," she said. "I wanted to hear Dr. Walden, but he has had time to make a long speech and get through since I first started. I think it must be nearl...

"How on earth do you manage to keep so thoroughly posted in regard to Chautauqua affairs? One would think you were the wife of the private secretary. _I_ shouldn't have known wh...