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 us that I have not seen very lately, but she is not a minister."

"Not Ruth Davenport, John!"

"Yes, of Ruth."

"John, let me assure thee that thee is greatly on my mind. Ruth is a sore trial to her parents, as thee must know, and I am sad to think of her unless she turns from her worldly ways. Thee is not as constant at meeting as we wish, and it has been long upon my mind to speak to thee. Does Ruth prevent thy coming."

John Bishop came very near getting angry, but Friend Bunting was very aged, and he could only submit to her questioning with apparent excellent grace. Of course it was her right, as an elder, to call his attention to matters concerning the meeting and his relation thereto, but at the same time he did wish she was a man, that he might speak what he really thought. Was it to be his lot to preach a new phase of Christianity? he sometimes asked himself. Well, with Ruth for a helpmeet it would not be so great a hardship as to be forever under the fire of