In spite of the snow the church was crowded. The
subject announced had evidently touched a vital spot in
modern life. More people were thinking about "The
Woman of the Future" than she had suspected. The crowd
sat with eager, upturned faces.

The first half-hour's prayer and song service had
just begun. Mary joined in the singing of the stirring
evangelistic hymns with enthusiasm. Something in their
battle-cry melody caught her spirit instantly tonight
and her whole being responded. In ten minutes she was
a good shouting Methodist and supremely happy without
knowing why. She never paused to ask. Her nature was
profoundly religious and she had been born and bred in
the atmosphere of revivals. Her father was an
aggressive evangelist both in his character and methods
of work, and she was his own daughter--a child of
emotion.

The individuals in the eager crowd which packed the
popular church meant nothing to her personally. They
had passed before her unseeing eyes Sunday after Sunday
the past five years as mere shadows of an unknown world
which swallowed them up the moment they reached the
street. She had never seen the inside of one of their
homes. Not one of them had drawn close enough to her
to venture an invitation.

Two of the stewards she knew personally--one a