repeated in Marion’s hearing.  What of all that?  Why, that little gloomy kitchen was Marion’s memory of home; that old, tired man was her father, and he used to sing those words while his hand wandered tenderly through the curls of her brown head, and patted softly the white forehead over which they fell; and all of love that there was in life, all that the word “tenderness” meant, all that was dear, or sweet or to be reverenced, was embodied in that one memory to Marion.  Now you understand the flashing eyes.  She did not believe it at all; she believed, or thought she did, that the “broad” and “narrow” roads were all nonsense; that go where you would, or do what you would, all the roads led to death; and that was the end.  But the father who had quavered through those lines so many times had staked his hopes forever on that belief, and the assurance of it had clothed his face in a grand smile as he lay dying—­a smile that she liked to think of, that she did not like to hear ridiculed, and to her excited imagination Dr. Eggleston seemed to be ridiculing the faith on which the hymn was built.  “They are more thorough hypocrites than I supposed,” she said, in scorn, and hardly in undertone, in answer to Eurie’s inquiring look.  “I don’t believe the stuff myself, but I always supposed the ministers did.  I gave some of them at least credit for sincerity, but it seems it is nothing but a fable to be laughed to scorn.”

“Why, Marion!” Eurie said, and her look expressed surprise and dismay.  “He is not making fun of religion, you know; he is simply referring to the inappropriateness of such hymns for children.”

“What is so glaringly inappropriate about it if they really believe the Bible?  I’m sure it says there that there are two roads, one broad and the other narrow; and that many people are on one and but few on the other.  Why shouldn’t it be put into a hymn if it is desirable to impress it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Eurie said, unaccustomed to being put through a course of logic.  “Only, you know, I suppose he simply means that it is beyond their comprehensions.”

“They must have remarkably limited comprehensions then if they are incapable of understanding so simple a figure of speech, as that there are two ways to go, and one is harder and safer than the other.  I understood it when it was sung to me—­and I was a very little child—­and believed it, too, until I saw the lives of people contradict it; but if I believed, it still I would not make public sport of it.”

At this point Ruth leaned forward from the seat behind and whispered: 

“Girls, do keep still; you are drawing the attention of all the people around you and disturbing everybody.”