got the benefit of your mood," interrupted Lottie. "Well, I have
listened to your sermon and understand it, and that is more than I
can say of many I have heard. It certainly was pointed, and seemed
pointed at me, and I have heard it said that it is proof of a good
sermon for each one to go away feeling that he has been distinctly
preached at. But permit me as a friend, Mr. Hemstead, to suggest that
this will not answer in our day. I fear, from my little foretaste,
that people will not be able to sit comfortably under your homilies,
and unless you intend to preach out in the back-woods, you must
modify your style."

"That is where I do intend to preach. At least upon the frontiers
of our great West."

"O, how dismal!" she exclaimed. "And can you, a young, and I suppose
an ambitious man, look forward to being buried alive, as it were,
in those remote regions?"

"I assure you I do not propose to be buried alive at the West, or
spiritually smothered, as you hinted, in a fashionable church at
the East. I think the extreme West, where states and society are
forming with such marvellous rapidity, is just the place for a
young, and certainly for an ambitious man. Is it nothing to have
a part in founding and shaping an empire?"

"You admit that you are ambitious, then."

"Yes."

"Is that right?"