"I do, yes, I do," said the girl earnestly, "for I cannot make a public confession. It is terrible, this thing of passing helplessly to eternal punishment. Oh, it is terrible to think of!"

"What wrong have you done?"

"I was born a sinner, and have not seen God's grace. Oh, it is awful to be damned eternally! But I do not wish to speak of these things, this is not what I wish to say to you. Be careful to avoid the subject of religion; let father have his word, but make no reply while you stay with us. And-" she stopped.

"And what?"

"Go regularly to church. To-morrow is meeting-day, the first Sabbath that follows the first Saturday. Go to church with us. And, above all, do not study on the Sabbath; do not break stones, do not pick up fossils, do not read the newspapers."

"What am I to do?"

"After attending morning services and riding horseback five miles to and from church, you will have little time left. Pass it in God's service."

"And this has been your life?"

"From childhood," she answered. "Never has

the first Sabbath following the first Saturday found me absent from church. Winter, summer, rain, snow or flood are to me one and the samc that day."

"I call this a devilish-" began the young man; but then he stopped and added with a smile, “Be it as you say, Miss Warwick. I am a guest, and shall abide by the custom of the family."

"To-morrow, then, you will go to church and will not offend father by studying or reading?" "I shall do as you wish."

"Last Sabbath you collected fossils, but, fortunately, father was away all day, and was not aware of it. He preached in the old church up the Stringtown pike, and it took him from daylight until dark to go and return. However, he will be home to-morrow, and that is why I speak so to you to-day."

That night the guest wrote to his friend:

"DEAR CHARLEY: I'm in it for sure. Tomorrow I've got to go to church and be good, after the style of a hard-shell Baptist, and be good, too, while I am out of church. Only think, I cannot pick up a fossil, or study my Dana, or break a stone. I must sit and think of, the old

scratch knows what, read the Bible and psalmbook, and mope the day away. Charley, this country is a geological mine. These hills and cliffs are made up of strata of fossil, blue limestone, over which once beat the ancient ocean. The tops of the highest knobs and the floor of the creeks and all between are a mass of stone shells. Here the famed Cincinnati Formation is to be seen at its best.

"Charley, this old man Warwick is a case. He takes his dram as regularly as dram-time comes, and says his prayers as sure as the sun rises or the dinner-table is set. He sings a psalm, too, now and then, and yet, amid all his religious fervency and his faith in a beneficent God, this daughter of his is afraid to smile in his presence. I don't know just how the old man would take it, but she ought to see the world, and I'd like to

"Oh, well, to-morrow we all go to 'meeting' on horseback, ride five miles, rain or shine, and back again. The first Sunday that follows the first Saturday is 'meeting' day.

"LIONEL.

"Ha! ha! the first Sunday that follows the first Saturday."

CHAPTER VI.

THE CHURCH ON THE ISLAND.—WARWICK'S

TRIALS BEGIN.

SUNDAY morning Warwick, his family and Lionel started to church on horseback. As they neared the ford of the creek at the base of the hill Lionel noticed on the opposite summit, where the road crossed its crest, two men on horseback, watching the party in the valley. But Warwick apparently did not see them, for he turned down the branch, his companions following in single file. Lionel was the last in the line; and as they turned away he chanced again to look toward the men on the hill, and saw that they were moving slowly down the road. Then his eyes caught the glitter of brass in the sunlight. A moment later he lost sight of them.

Any one familiar with this part of Stringtown County need not be informed that the view is exceptionally picturesque. The hills rise, each

seeming to strive to get above the one behind. The road branches and divides, as does the creek, for along each branch of the creek a horse-path turns toward the homes that rest along the hillsides and near their summits. The fossil stones lie flat in the creek-beds, layer above layer they shelve out of the yellow clay in broken edges.

The forests along the creek have never been touched by the axe, excepting where a tree has been felled to make way for the narrow roadway; the hillsides are occasionally cleared to give space for a tobacco patch or a touch of corn; but, as a rule, Nature holds her own in the knobs and valleys of Stringtown County. At the first opportunity, where the road widened, Lionel drew his horse alongside that of Joshua.

"Did you see the horsemen on the hill?"
"D' you think I'm blind?”

"Were they not cavalrymen?"

Joshua looked sharply at the questioner. “Is thet yer consarn?"

"No. I only asked out of curiosity."

"I hain't got no curiosity, and I reckon et'll be better fer you not ter hev any. Ef a feller is goin' ter meetin' in Stringtown County, he hes