"Edith"--Beth hesitated before she finished the quietly eager
enquiry--"do you still think marriage the best thing in the world?"

Edith gave her friend a warm embrace in reply. "Yes, Beth, I think it
the very best thing, if God dwell in your home."

"That sounds like Arthur," said Beth.

"Do you ever hear of him. Where is he?"

"I don't know where he is," said Beth, with a half sigh.

Clarence walked home with Beth to dinner, after church, the next
morning.

"How do you like the new minister?" Beth asked.

"Oh, I think he's a clever little fellow."

"So do I," said Beth. "He seems to be a man of progressive ideas. I
think we shall have bright, interesting sermons."

Marie was slightly ill that Sunday, and did not come out. Clarence and
Beth took a stroll in the moonlight. The world looked bright and
beautiful beneath the stars, but Clarence was quieter even than usual,
and Beth sighed faintly. Clarence was growing strangely quiet and
unconfidential. He was certainly not a demonstrative lover. Perhaps,
after all, love was not all she had dreamed. She had painted her
dreamland too bright. She did not acknowledge this thought, even to her
own soul; but her heart was a little hungry that summer night. Poor