going to pray." Suppose she had said; "Yes, I want to go home to
_practice_."




CHAPTER XXXI.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.


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 insist upon being done
at that moment. For instance, our girls were obliged to spend the whole
of Monday morning in packing their trunks and satchels, returning their
furniture, settling for their tents, and the like; in short, breaking up
housekeeping and getting ready to go back to the civilized world. Flossy
and Ruth dispatched their part at the hotel promptly and came over to
the grounds to help the others. They discussed the meeting while they
worked.

"If we hadn't been idiots," Marion said, "we should have attended that
normal class and been graduating, this morning, instead of being down
here, at work at our trunks and unknown to fame."

"Well, you wouldn't go," Ruth answered. "Don't you know you declared
that was too much like work, and you hadn't an idea of learning
anything?"