been a powerful disappointment to him, after he had trudged along so many years—­turned back, too, when he’d got a good piece on his way; then it was so aggravating, to get up there and look over into the nice green meadows, and know that if he hadn’t let out his temper so, he might have gone in with the rest of them.  I declare, I got so exercised thinking it over when I was a working my butter, that I forgot to salt it.”

“I think I should like to study Shakespeare,” said Mrs. Berkeley.  “Where does one find such knowledge of human nature as there?  Where else are such rare gems to be had by digging?”

“In my book,” said Mrs. Lewis, “the Psalmist says, ’It is more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold;’ and another says, ’It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.’  Is not that a knowledge of human nature that excels even Shakespeare?”

“It strikes me a variety would suit all,” said another.  “George Eliot’s writings are full of power, and deep enough for me, I assure you.  We might read some of her books, then some of Dickens and Thackeray, then occasionally a book of poems; Longfellow and Whittier, or, if we want to study harder, there is Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, and Shakespeare.  It would be excellent discipline to try and get at the exact meaning of the authors, and puzzle out all the obscurities, it would not be long before we should feel quite rich in a literary way.  In reading such works together, and talking them over, of course we make them ours as we can in no other way.”

“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever,” quoted Mrs. Lewis.  “Do you know that all those writings, valuable and good in their place as they are, when compared with the Bible seem to me just like grass and flowers?  Now, if we have but a little time to give to study, why not spend a good part of it in studying the ‘endureth-for-ever’ book, because, as nearly as I can find out, that book and ourselves are the only things in this world that are going to endure for ever?  Don’t it strike you that in such a case we ought to be more familiar with it than with all these others?”

Mrs. Lewis’ solemn words put a silence on the lips for a few minutes, but practical Mrs. Brown broke it by remarking: 

“Perhaps it would be a good plan for us to study hygiene.  I have always thought, if we gave more attention to ventilation, and to what we shall eat and wear, and so on, we should have better health.”

“Yes,” said a still more practical sister, “that would be real nice.  Then I was noticing in the paper that there is a Presbyterian cook-book just out.  I should like to have some read out of that.”

This caused a smile to go around the circle, for Mrs. Boot was one of those inveterate pie and cake makers, whose life consisted in the abundance of pastry; who was an unhappy woman until she had obtained the last new receipt for cake and made it up.