“You are entirely mistaken, Miss Follet,” she gently returned.  “Christian Science and spiritualism are as far removed from each other as the Poles.  But I repeat, I cannot give you a paper on the subject you have assigned me.”

“Do I understand, Miss Minturn, that you absolutely refuse to respond to the appointment?” gravely inquired the president, while whispered comments and an excited rustle were heard from various parts of the room.

“Miss Walton, I must,” said Katherine, firmly.

“Do you know the penalty of such a refusal?” the presiding officer queried, while Katherine started and colored crimson as she continued:  “Any member of the league refusing to comply with an appointment made by its committee is subject to expulsion.”

“Provided there is no good reason for such a refusal, I believe the by-law reads,” here interposed a young lady who was beginning to feel sorry for Katherine, for she knew that she was simply being “made game of” by those who held her religious belief in derision.

“Yes, certainly.  If you can give a good and sufficient reason for the stand you have taken, Miss Minturn, you will, of course, be excused,” the president supplemented, realizing there was something in the atmosphere which she did not understand, as she had no knowledge of the plot that had been concocted by the mischief-loving element of the league.

“I think I have already given a good reason,” Katherine observed, with quiet dignity; “Christian Science is my religion, and I have been asked to treat it as transcendentalism, and—­I am inclined to think—­in a perverted sense of that term.  Can I be expected to hold my religion up for ridicule?  I do not refuse the appointment to write a paper; it is the subject that I decline.”

“I claim that Miss Minturn’s reason is ‘good and sufficient,’ and I move that she be excused,” said Miss Clark, the young lady who had previously spoken in Katherine’s behalf.

The excitement was increasing, and the president was obliged to rap vigorously for order before she could make herself heard.

“Does anyone second Miss Clark’s motion?” she inquired.

It was somewhat timidly seconded by a weak voice from one corner of the room; but when put to vote the hands were three to one against it.

Could it be possible, Katherine asked herself in sudden dismay, that certain members of the league were taking this way to get rid of her?  Why, then, had they invited her to join it in the first place?

“It seems, Miss Minturn, that you cannot be excused,” Miss Walton observed, with a deprecatory smile.

Katherine did not mean to be driven out of the club in such an underhanded manner if she could avoid it; neither would she violate her conscience.

“I shall be obliged to maintain my position, nevertheless,” she responded, after a moment of thought.  Then she resumed, in a tone of regret:  “And since the league does not see fit to release me because of my conscientious scruples, which, it seems to me, should be an unquestionable motive, I will state that Prof.  Seabrook, who also does not favor my views, has enjoined me to silence upon the subject while I am a student at Hilton.”