They were late, and almost abandoned in despair the hope of getting
within hearing, until a happy thought suggested a seat on the platform
stair at the speaker's back. There was a "crack" there, Marion said,
into which they presently crept.

The address was already commenced. Marion listened at first with that
indifferent air that a face wears when its owner perforce commences in
the middle of a thing, and has to _wait_ his way to a tangible idea of
what is being said.

There was not long waiting, however. Her eyes began to dilate and her
face to glow; she was almost a worshiper of eloquence, and surely no one
ever sat for two hours and listened to a more unbroken flow of rich,
glowing words, shining like diamonds, than fell lavishly around the
listeners that Friday morning at Chautauqua. But a few minutes and
Marion's pencil began to move with speed. This was the thought that had
thrilled her:

"First, light; then liberation from chaos; then grass; and then God
stopped his work and gazed with delight on the picture he had drawn.
Think what a picture it must have been! There was nothing but rocks
ground down when God said, 'Earth, grow!' Then straightway the mother
power fell down upon the earth, life pulsed in her veins, and the baby
shoot of grass sprang up, and the rocky earth wrapped herself in her
garment of emerald, and God, stopping his work said, 'Useful,
beautiful!'"

When the speaker touched upon the doctrine of the resurrection Marion's
pencil paused, and she leaned eagerly forward to get a glimpse of his
face. That doctrine had seemed to her doubting heart the strangest,