CHRISTMAS EVE, 1858.

The days and weeks of the dry, brilliant summer and autumn flew along with dusty, burnished wings. For some time the efforts of the commanding officer at Camp Floyd were measurably successful in restraining undue intercourse between his men and the people of the neighboring settlements.

In the city of Great Salt Lake the affairs of the people went on with much the same regularity and soberness that had always characterized them. Yet, underneath every act and word, one could feel the current of silent expectation and preparation among this hunted people; expectation of anything sudden and vicious which the army of Utah might attempt to do; and a consequent preparation for defense and perhaps war. There was a small reign of terror, at times, rampant in those whilom silent city streets. While the officers might hold their own men in check, they exercised no authority over the crowd of vile camp-followers which sometimes swept up and over those city thoroughfares with a terrifying cloud of debauchery and crime.

President Young was threatened continually in divers ways; by anonymous letters; by wild and erratic apostates; and he knew through reports of authorized agents that no effort would be spared by the district judges or the military force to put his freedom and his life in jeopardy. Around him, therefore, was gathered a trusty band of his bravest and best friends; and among them was found our good friend, John Stevens. His watch at the President's office came at night, and he was therefore prevented from attending many of the parties and balls which still went on in every part of the city. Brigham Young knew his people too well to allow other and less innocent occupations to usurp the place of the dance and amateur theater.

On Christmas eve, 1858, there was to be a magnificent ball given in the fine, new Social Hall. Oh, the blessed memories clinging around that dear old hall! What scenes of enjoyment, and frolic, sweet and pure, have been celebrated within its gray walls! What hearts have met their fate, what lips have spoken the words of love eternal, while mingling in the happy dance—old and young, rich and poor! No class distinctions ever marred the festivities of that generous place! No separation of old folks from the young ever jarred upon the spirit of mutual love and confidence which marked the social intercourse of the Saints. And what wonderful plays were enacted by that remarkable company of players, headed by Hiram Clawson, John T. Caine, James Ferguson and Mrs. Wheelock and Mrs. Gibson! Dear are these precious memories to the children of the pioneers; for within these walls they learned, through definite object lessons, that religion was not merely a Sabbath affair, put on as a cloak! Ah, no; it entered into the very center of pulsating life and emotion, and was a living entity in the innocent, religious pleasures, as well as the simple, trustful sorrows of this blessed people!

"I am going to bring my dress over to your house, Dian," said Ellen Tyler, early that Christmas eve, "and get ready with you, for I want you to fix my hair; you have such lovely taste. I never look so well as when you arrange my hair and dress. And then I can get the use of your looking-glass, too."

Ellen did look lovely. She had a new pink print dress, and print dresses in those days were as superior to the common calicoes of today, as are the prices of today less than were those early standards of values. The skirt was made with dainty, flying ruffles, nearly to the waist, and edged with the prettiest of hand-crocheted lace; while the waist, full and gathered into the belt, was fitted with billowy sleeves of bishop shape. At the belt and near the left shoulder were flying bows of pink ribbon; while peeping behind the right ear, a tiny bow of pink made the chestnut brown hair richer for its suggestive contrast.

"Ellie, dear, you look just like one of Aunt Clara's spice pinks! I never saw you look so lovely. I could hug you myself for very admiration."

Dian stood afar off from her friend admiring her, and approaching Ellen at last, she bestowed upon the soft, pale cheek, a small pinch, to give the delicate tint needed to complete the exquisite picture.

"Well, it's no use telling you how you look, Dian, for I am sure you know it so well yourself; the fact of your own magnificent charm is so apparent that it is nonsense for anyone to try and flatter you."

"Are you making fun of me, Ellie?" queried Diantha, as she turned around from the tiny looking-glass to ask her question. "I know well enough that I have a passably good form, and that I do have some taste in dressing myself; but I hate these ugly red cheeks, and would give anything in this world for your clear, pale complexion."

The girl looked with a positive gleam of anger in her flashing blue eyes at the image of herself reflected in the glass, and muttered as she pretended to pinch her own rose-tinted cheeks: "Oh, you ugly, scarlet things, how I hate you!"

"It makes me unhappy, Dian, to hear you call yourself ugly. You know God has blessed you with rare gifts of face and form, and you ought not to speak as you do, let alone feeling so wicked about your red cheeks. They are lovely to me. They always make me feel as if I would like to take a bite out of them, as I would from a red June apple."

Dian was almost in tears now, at such a homely, unpoetic comparison, and her friend hastened to change the conversation.

"Say, Dian, do you think John Stevens can get off tonight to come down to the ball? I feel as if half of my fun would be gone without him."

"Oh, I don't know, I am sure. I haven't seen John for weeks. He is up at the President's office night and day, I guess."

"Well, I will have to content myself with Tom Allen, or Brother Leon, I guess, for I must have some fun with somebody. I am just wild for a frolic. I can hardly wait for Tom to come, I want so much to get to the party."

The girl was indeed full of the vitality of youth and health, and her pulse danced and tingled with expectant pleasure. She was young, lovely and loving, and she longed for love and admiration. Who could blame her?

THE BALL IN THE SOCIAL HALL

Arrived at the hall, the girls left their escorts at the door, and hurried into the crowded dressing room under the stage. What hand-shakings and laughing exchange of greetings they found there! What merry peals of gentle laughter! What garrulous exchanges of confidences as to the causes and effects of the day's labors and pleasures, were buzzing in the two low-ceiled, square dressing rooms that happy night!

Up from the basement came the fragrant odor of baking meats, and delicious pastry. A small army of cooks was busy preparing the elaborate supper; for this was one of the good old-time parties, for which the tickets cost five dollars in scrip or produce, or less in cash; and the guests came at early dusk, and after dancing for three or four hours, were served at the loaded tables in the basement, with the luxuries and delicacies of mountain food and mountain cooking; after eating heartily of the supper, all were ready then for the dance to be renewed until the early morning hours; at any time, however, the merry-makers were glad to cease from the gay quadrilles, and listen to the wise counsel or appropriate remarks made, perchance, by the Presidency of the Church or other good speakers, who were ever the merriest and best dancers in the room. At these innocent revelries also, there was a grateful lack of unholy passions and impure thoughts and words begotten by the too frequent round dancing of novel-reading youths.

"Did you ever, in your life, see Diantha and Ellie look so pretty?" asked more than one unselfish mother, as the two girls came up the little stairway from the dressing room, into the main hall, followed by their cavaliers.

Diantha was entrancing in her simple, straight-skirted, pale-blue slip—for she scorned the balloon-like hoops of the day—with no ornament save the pale gold masses of her luminous hair, and the rich pink and white of her unappreciated but glorious complexion. She herself disliked her chief charm, the warm, rich coloring, which gave so much glowing life and fascinating vitality to the otherwise somewhat cold expression and haughty air.

Both the girls danced with the lightest grace and the keenest enjoyment, and each was besieged with partners, for both were recognized belles in their own circle. Ellen Tyler watched and waited in vain for the appearance of her beloved friend, John Stevens. She had never heard a word of love from his lips; indeed, she had never given him direct encouragement to offer such words; but she knew that, with a little insistence on his part, she could pour out to him the wealth of her young heart. And with all her swarm of admirers, she was unsatisfied, and yearning for the love that had never been offered her. Yet she was too sweet and womanly to think for a moment of showing more interest in any man than his own interest in her justified. And so she waited and watched, trying to dance always in the set nearest the stairway which led to the outer north entrance of the hall.

She was not particularly surprised when a small boy came up to her and whispered that a gentleman outside wished to speak to her for a moment.

"Oh," she murmured in her heart, "it must be John."

She threw a shawl around her in passing the dressing room, and followed the boy outside. She saw no one when she got in the deserted doorway and was about to turn around and go back to the hall, for the lane looked very dark and forbidding at that late hour.

Just as she turned, a man with a dark cloak enveloping his whole form stepped out from the east corner of the building and, with a low bow, said softly:

"Forgive me, Miss Tyler, but the sight of heaven tempted me to try and draw out the angel, if but for one moment. I am lonesome, a stranger, and full of longing for the acquaintance of a sweet woman, be she sister or friend."

Ellen recognized the voice of her soldier acquaintance, and she involuntarily shrank back from him.

"Do not shrink from me, dear, sweet, gentle spirit. I am but a lonely, unhappy man, so near to a paradise of laughter, love and music, and yet unable to partake of one single element of all the glory that I see. You remember, even the angels are not ashamed to pity."

Just then someone came into the lane from the sidewalk, and Ellen hurriedly moved away to enter the deep doorway. As she turned, she felt a note thrust into her hand and then she was once more inside the safe precincts of the lighted, noisy building, and she put the note deep down into her pocket for future reference.

When she once more made her way into the dancing hall, she was surprised to find John Stevens dancing on the floor, and with no less a person than her dear friend Diantha. She wondered how she had missed him, but reflected that he must have come in while she was in the dressing room hunting her shawl.

"He will soon come to me," she whispered to herself, and waited impatiently for that coming.

But he did not come. Diantha and he danced together the first time and the second and the third time, and as Ellen had refused to dance, and was sitting on the side benches, she could easily follow them as the couple moved through the mazes of the quadrille and reel. Diantha's cheeks were glowing, and her eyes looked like blazing stars in the azure blue, while her lips were like the red balls on the winter wild rose bushes. And Ellen's sharp eyes noted that Diantha was not now wearing Charlie's ring. What was happening? Dian floated round with a rhythmical grace that was always so witching an accomplishment of her queenly beauty. Ellen watched and listened. She was too shrewd not to detect some meaning beneath all this throbbing excitement, and she knew that there was more than the usual effort to fascinate, in the manner of her friend Dian.

As for John, he seemed almost another man. Talk about blazing eyes; his almost burned into flame as he kept his intense gaze fastened upon the uplifted glances of his companion. He said little; Ellen could see that; but his look and his manner as he came near his dancing partner betrayed his whole secret. It was for the first time, too, for never before had he received such open, such undisguised encouragement from the girl beside him.

"John never looked at me like that," whispered Ellen in her own heart, "never, never!"

The two dancers were so absorbed in each other that they gave no heed whatever to anyone about them, and so it came to pass that the brief space of time spent by John in that eventful ball was spent wholly in the society of Diantha.

Ellen's enjoyment was all over. She felt nothing but a thrill of jealous regret, mingled with a passionate wish for another love to prove to John Stevens that she, too, could be sought and she felt as well an intense desire for the love itself. She was such a tender, clinging nature, physical love to her was not an incident, it was life itself.

When she was safely at home she opened her note and by the light of her tallow candle, she read:

"My Dear Young Friend:

"I trust you will pardon the seeming forwardness of this letter. Yours is such a gentle, forgiving nature, that you can but excuse, especially when you know that the act is prompted by as deep an affection and as earnest an admiration as could be bestowed by the heart of a man. I am heartsick and alone. I find myself filled with a love which is as hopeless as it is passionate; will you not let me at least have the mournful pleasure of expressing that love, although I know too well its hopeless character? You are so good, so pure that it cannot hurt you to become the one star of peace in a stranger's dark horizon. I would offer you all the love, protection and devotion usual to my walk in life, if I knew that I dared.

"At least, let me have the opportunity of telling you, once for all, the love that fills my whole being for the angel who saved my life at the risk of the anger and ostracism of her own people. Will you not meet me for a few happy, happy moments while I tell you of my friendship and esteem? I will be on the northeast corner of the block on which you live, with a sleigh, tomorrow evening after nine o'clock. If you wear a white scarf over your head I shall see you in the distance, and know you are coming.

"I am forever your hopeless, despairing

"LOVER."

The note was written on heavy cream-tinted paper. It bore a beautiful crest or monogram in one corner, and it was sealed delicately with pink sealing-wax, stamped with a signet ring, which bore the device of some ancient French nobleman, and it was filled with a delicious perfumery, the odor of which floated around her like a visible presence. Ellen felt in her inmost soul that she should at once destroy this letter, and go to Aunt Clara with her whole secret; but it was such an entrancing letter! And John Stevens had flouted her so cruelly. No! She would keep the letter just to read it again! And then Ellen gave herself over to vague, delirious day-dreams.

DIANTHA'S SUDDEN AWAKENING

Three weeks after the ball in the Social Hall, the two girls were at a rag-bee at Aunt Clara Tyler's. There was the usual light gossip, and jolly laughter, and as was always the case at Aunt Clara's home, everybody felt unusually kind and pleasant. Aunt Clara had the faculty of making everybody feel desirous of doing and saying the best that was in them.

"Did you hear that Tom Allen and his girl are to be married at last?" asked Sister Hattie Jones, who was busily threading her needle.

"You don't mean it?" answered Rachel Winthrop. "I really thought he was going to 'play off' on her and marry Ellie."

"I don't know how you could think that, Aunt Rachel," said Ellen, a trifle sharply; "I have never had the least notion of trying to cut Luna out, and my friendship for Tom was of the most platonic nature, I assure you."

Mrs. Jones saw she had made a mistake, and to cover her confusion, she began on another subject.

"Our Mark says that these soldiers are getting pretty impudent around here. He says he has seen an officer riding around this ward in a sleigh every night for the last three weeks. And he says, too, that this stranger had one of our girls with him, for he saw her get out one night, and he declares it is one of the girls in our ward. But he won't tell who; he is going to get a better look at the girl, he says, before he tells anyone who it is. I declare I don't see what our silly girls are thinking of, to run around with these soldiers, who will ruin them as quick as a wink, and then if they felt like it, they would shoot 'em besides."

Diantha looked in quick surprise at Ellen, the moment this story began, and she saw with infinite alarm the sudden flush which spread over her friend's usually pale cheek; and with the quick intuition of love, she divined that Ellen was the guilty girl. What on earth could she do? The talk drifted on and on, and Diantha listened and kept her intent, loving gaze fixed upon the drooping eyes of her beloved friend. The two girls cleaned up the supper dishes. Ellen talked with rapid garrulity, as if to prevent a single word being said by her companion. At last, when bedtime came, Diantha said, as calmly and as indifferently as she could:

"I believe I'll stay all night with you, Ellie darling, for Aunt Clara is going out again tonight, she says, to nurse the sick; she has to go out so much, doesn't she? But what would we do without Aunt Clara? She is a whole Relief Society of herself, isn't she? You and I haven't had a good talk since Christmas."

"Well, all right. But," the girl added hesitatingly, "I'm afraid we'll have to sleep three in a bed, for Aunt Clara has sent Cousin Alice to sleep with me tonight."

"Never mind," cheerfully responded Diantha, resolved not to be balked in her endeavor to know more about her friend's walks and ways; "I can easily do that, for I often have extra company, and you and I don't mind crowding a bit."

The girls hurried up to their room, soon after the evening prayers were over, and Diantha looked in vain for a third bedfellow. But she refrained from asking where the invisible Alice was, for she instinctively felt that Ellen had lied to her to make an excuse to prevent the talk Diantha had resolved to have with her friend. Dian was a wise girl, and she felt instinctively that it would not be prudent to urge herself upon her friend's confidence. So she chatted on other topics, and they were soon undressed and in bed. For some reason, Dian felt unusually wakeful, and she lay for a long time awake, with a curious feeling, a sort of expectancy of something, or somebody, which made the chills of uncomfortable fear race up and down her back. But at last she fell asleep, trying dimly to account for her strange sensations, and wondering vaguely who was coming. Sometime in the night she awoke, half-startled, and in a moment she was conscious, wide awake, and in perfect control of her faculties. It was the complete instant wakefulness which comes to mothers with sick children, or to men who watch their homes and loved ones in times of danger! She wondered for one brief instant why she was not in her own room, and then it flashed over her. She reached out her hand, and although she was in some way curiously prepared for it, she found her companion not at her side, and she felt all the shock of surprised dread which that discovery would necessarily entail. She lay still a moment, trying to persuade herself that Ellen had gone down stairs for a drink, or that she had gone into Aunt Clara's room, for some purpose, and at last she called out softly:

"Ellie, Ellie, dear!"

No answer came, and she was about to get up and find a light, when she heard the front door open, and directly after, the sound of hurried, muffled footsteps running up the stairs to her room, and she knew instinctively who it was.

"Ellen?" she said at once, as soon as the door opened.

"Yes," came the breathless answer, from out the darkness.

"Where have you been?" was Dian's rather stern question.

"Down stairs after some oil. I have a sore throat."

That was the second lie her friend had told her that night. Dian knew it would be useless to try to learn anything further, for more questions would only bring more lies, and she dreaded to hear another. It hurt her that her beloved Ellen should feel it possible to tell lies to anyone or for any purpose.

Dian could hear in the darkness the swift motions of the girl unrobing, and she rashly tried another question:

"What on earth did you dress for, Ellie, just to go down stairs after oil?"

"Would you like to run all over the house such a bitter cold night as this without any clothes on?" sharply asked Ellen.

Dian lay still after that, realizing how hopeless it was to think of probing the confidence of the girl she had driven away from her by her abstractions and neglect.

Dian's thoughts were bitter and remorseful. She could see now how at times she had paid little attention to the affectionate girl by her side, and how often she had allowed their confidences to remain unspoken when she herself was absorbed in some more congenial pursuit. She saw, too, her own thoughtless selfishness—was it selfishness? Dian was loath to admit that it was selfishness on her part which had driven Ellen to seek for friendship and confidence where it was given more freely. Was she, Dian, really selfish? Or was she just self-absorbed? And which was which? Whichever it might be, Dian felt she could never again be so self-centered. She must think of others more, and of her own life less. As to who had gained this confidence, even Dian dared not think. Neither of the girls could sleep, both were too agitated for repose. But neither felt to break the strained silence between them.

"I heard today at the rag-bee, Ellen," said Dian at last, gently, "that John Stevens was coming home from that trip into the north country. If he is here tomorrow night, we will have him over to our house, and have a candy-pulling."

"You'd better have him all to yourself, Diantha, for that will please both of you, and I guess it will hurt nobody else."

Ellen spoke in so low and bitter a tone, that Dian felt unable to say anything more until she had fathomed the reason for such anger.

"What has John, or what have I done that you should speak like that, Ellie?"

"Done? Done nothing, I guess!" still bitterly. "But it didn't take any smartness or particular discernment to see what was going on between you two at the Christmas ball. I can see as far through a mill-stone as anyone else, as your sister-in-law Rachel says."

Diantha was silenced.

What could it mean; Ellen Tyler sarcastic, bitter, and deceitful? What did it all mean? Diantha lay quite still, but she could not sleep. Her past life and her own faults came before her with startling vividness and she felt that in some respects she had been a sorry failure. She hated herself for all the thoughtless disregard for other people's feelings which had at times hurt her best friends. And she knew, too, that within herself there lay a wealth of devoted self-sacrifice at the roots of her soul. Life was at last assuming an impersonal attitude to this awakening heart.

What about Ellen? One thing Dian knew, and that was that Ellen had really liked John Stevens, and what did her bitter anger and her sarcasm at herself mean? She concluded that Ellen was jealous of her. Jealous! jealous of her, Diantha! What, then? What had she done to make her jealous? To think that they two should be at loggerheads over big, silent John Stevens! She herself had always openly declared that she never could love a red-bearded man. Well, John's hair was fine and wavy and it was rich brown, any one could see that. But his long silken beard! As she thought about it, it really seemed to her to be not so bad either. The heroes in the few novels and theaters she had read and witnessed all had mustaches, silken mustaches. None of them were pictured with long beards. That was for old men and farmers. However, there was something harmonious in the long beard of the tall, silent John Stevens. As she reached this point, the girl beside her sighed a deep, heavy, heart-sad sigh, which struck Dian as very unusual, especially with sunny Ellen Tyler.

What was Ellen sighing for? Oh, yes, she was jealous of her and John Stevens. Well, what would she, Diantha, do about it? She resented the suggestion which came into her mind, that she would show forth fruits meet for repentance for all her past selfishness by now being supremely unselfish, and giving up every hope of John Stevens. Then there flashed into her mind the attentions which that wicked soldier had been paying on the sly to Ellen; and now that she thought of it, why, of course that was where Ellen had been that night. And that was the reason that she herself had felt so strangely when she awoke. Ellen was in danger, and the inspiration of the Spirit and her natural instinct had warned her of her friend's danger. Ellen had been out with him! Now that she was in possession of the whole fearful secret what should she do?

Another deep sigh by her side made Dian turn swiftly over, and putting her arms around the girl, she drew her to her and as Ellen burst into a fit of passionate weeping, Diantha stroked her hair and soothed her without asking questions or attempting to pry into the confidence of the sobbing girl. Diantha knew that forced confidence is neither full nor satisfactory. Ellen sobbed herself to sleep, after which Diantha did some very serious thinking. She made her decision at last, and then with a deep sigh from her own heart, she fell into a broken, restless sleep, which morning broke with a glad release.

What that resolve was, was shadowed forth in her next meeting with John Stevens.

DIAN IS TRUE TO HER RESOLVE

It happened that when she came out of her home to attend her Sabbath services the next Sunday, she found tall, silent John Stevens on her doorstep, with a peculiar look in his eyes and a very fine new suit of homespun gray clothing his tall form.

"Oh," she gasped. Then as with a sudden impulse, "Come on, I am going to get Ellie as I go along. She must go to meeting with us this morning."

Now, as John had not seen Diantha since the memorable ball, and as he had certainly expected to get a greeting all his own without the mention of anybody else, he saw occasion to be very much surprised, if not a little annoyed. But as usual he said nothing, and they walked along, Diantha laughing with a quick, metallic sound, as if she were very happy or as if she were trying to conceal some undercurrent of emotion. John chose to interpret her looks and her manner to mean a rebuff to him, but he was slow to anger, and not easily disconcerted, so they strode merrily along the frozen path.

Ellen was very much surprised to see them enter her door, and she refused at first to go with them to church, as she had not made ready therefor, nor did she care to go. Diantha would not hear any excuses, and carried Ellen upstairs, to prepare hurriedly for the services.

As they approached the old—but then new—Tabernacle in the southwest corner of the Temple block, they could hear the organ's strains, accompanied by the united voices of the choir, as they sang the opening hymn. They were too late to enter till after the prayer, and so they stood outside on the step, and, as they stood there, they saw several officers approaching the door as if to enter the sacred building.

John at once stepped up to them and inquired casually:

"Can I be of any service to you, gentlemen?"

"We wish to attend your divine service this morning," replied Colonel Saxey, "and we presume it will not be offensive, as we wish merely to listen to your beautiful choir, of which we have heard so many complimentary things."

"Certainly, sir, you will be welcome." But out of John's eyes there flashed a gleam of hatred and suspicion toward one of the officers who lingered in the background. It was none other than Captain Sherwood. Sherwood caught the look and at once was on his guard; with consummate skill he directed his glances and his whole attention to Diantha. She returned his looks of admiration with cold, proud contempt, and she even went so far as to force herself between him and Ellen as they all passed up the aisle.

John saw Captain Sherwood cast glances of admiration towards Diantha Winthrop, and he saw, too, that she forced herself in between Ellen and Sherwood, but he failed to see the expression on Diantha's face. What wonder, then, that he drew a wrong conclusion? After this, his whole thought was centered upon watching the soldier, and he heard nothing of the eloquent sermon preached by Elder Heber C. Kimball. And very little did he hear of the really fine singing by the splendid choir of fifty voices led by Prof. C. J. Thomas, accompanied as it was by the tender, tuneful playing of that most beautiful and accomplished of all President Young's pretty daughters, Fanny Young.

Before the services were half over the officers withdrew, and John quietly took up his hat and followed them out. He never lost sight of them until they were mounted on their horses and well out of town. John wondered what they had come to town for, but he was sure of one thing, and that was that Diantha Winthrop had once more changed her fickle mind. Well, John was as proud as he was silent, and he stroked his beard with long, gentle passes, as he reflected upon life and its uncertain meaning for him.

The weeks flew by, filled with excitement, parties, false rumors of danger, and then again a few days' quiet would give the city a needed rest and comparative peace.

Diantha kept so firmly to her resolve that John Stevens could not secure her hand, even for a quadrille at a dance, as she was always just engaged. She would not allow him to speak to her one moment in private, and this so successfully turned his attention to Ellen Tyler that she breathed freely and felt that the sacrifice had been accepted and that her friend was saved.

JOHN ALSO RESOLVES

The early spring had begun to clothe the towering mountain steeps with spotted robes of brown, gray and green; over the distant summits, the fleecy wind-clouds were torn and draggled as they trailed their white skirts across the sharp edges of the mountain tops. Out on the hills peeped the lovely rare bulb that the pioneer children called "sego-lily," and here and there nestled the early, pink star they called "Sweet Williams;" and rarer still, the tall, intensely blue bulbous flower that was known as "the blue-bell," hid its precious beauty beneath the gray walls of its shrubby friend the sage brush. Everywhere the sego lily nodded with its golden brown heart and its delicate, pouting lips of creamy white; while children ran and laughed and quarreled as they dug the mellow, luscious root they called in the Indian tongue, "segoes."

Boys began to drive the sheep from the valley winter quarters to the bunch-grass covered hills above; the herdsman took possession of his mountain hut beside the cold, moss-covered spring, perched high up in the tiny valleys of the upper mountain peaks. Out on the hills was heard the tinkling bell of the sheep, and the call of the herders echoed from peak to peak as they drove their hungry flocks through the upper vales. The low, dark green pastures on the marshy lands began to throw up their mellow juices into feathery wild oat stems, or filled the reedy grass with thin nectar for the few and very choice cows that waded around with slow pleasure in the Jordan meadows.

Down by the Jordan's banks the boys watched the cows through the early spring days, occasionally plunging into the cool water for a quick swim, longing for the hot summer days when hours could be spent in the water of the treacherous stream. Here and there a stray fisherman threw his rude line into the stream and occasionally caught a mountain trout, the speckled beauty glistening like silver as he threw it upon the bank. At break of day, the husbandman—and who was not a husbandman in those early pioneer times in these valleys?—drove his team afield—not in the mellow soil known to the home he had left in the East, but in the hard, uncultivated earth of centuries of sun-baked, rainless summers, down in the bosom of the barren valleys. He dug out the tall, gray-spiked sage brush and huge, flaunting sunflowers, and everywhere he trenched his land in regular lines to train down upon it the cooling streams which gave life and fertility to the otherwise hopeless soil.

The first days of April brought the annual Conference, and everyone in Utah laid aside work and prepared to attend the great three days' meeting. Men in the city brought into their homes great stores of flour and food to feed the visitors who would tarry with them during the Conference. Women cooked meats and pastry, washed and ironed sheets and quilts and filled the extra straw ticks to make temporary beds in every spare corner to accommodate their usual country visitors.

For many miles on all the country roads could be seen teams of all descriptions wending their way to Conference. A few horses, some mules, and often great ox-teams plodded their way city-ward. Men, women and little children cheerfully left their homes and comforts to take chances of any kind of hospitality for the privilege of attending the prized semi-annual religious services.

The yard of the Tithing office was filled with visiting teams and wagons of every description, and busy women prepared food and comfort for the hungry multitude gathered there. Children ran about, playing at hide-and-seek, or chased each other over the ground amid wheels and wagon tongues, grouped about in semi-confusion.

It was rather a cold and damp time, therefore the Tabernacle was well warmed for the people gathered in happy groups for this Friday morning. What exchanges of greetings were there as brother met brother and sister greeted sister! Months, perhaps years had elapsed since they had seen each other. Here was a family just come over from the "old country" standing up between the benches to greet the throng which crowded about them to shake their hands, for they had been good to the "elders" in England, and every elder wanted to take them by the hand and introduce them to his family. How quaint the old English pronunciation sounded on those newly imported English tongues, and how queer the children looked with their little bare, red arms, and their low, broad-toed shoes and white "pinafores," and how it made the Utah children laugh and stare to be told by these recent importations to "give over now, give over;" and how the elder would smile as the jolly mother of the new arrival would recall his words and ways while amongst them; and how his merry eyes would sadden and fill with tears as he heard the story of "our Mary who had died," or, far worse, perchance, had apostatized in spite of all teachings, and who had been left behind to her own backsliding ways! What great slaps were bestowed upon broad backs as Brother So-and-So came up behind Brother What's-His-Name and thus announced his pleasure at greeting his old-time friend!

As John Stevens entered the well-warmed and cosy building, a few minutes before the meeting was called to order, his eye involuntarily became brighter in sympathy with the merry confusion and bustle which he witnessed all around him. Everybody was standing up and talking to everybody else, while on the distant "stand" the elders were indulging in the same friendly and informal greetings. Crops, the weather, babies, death, marriage, sermons, soldiers, war, the millennium, new homespun coats, the possible advent of a woolen mill in the Territory, carpet looms, shoe lasts, prospective sawmills, and the best recipe for cooking dried service-berries, all these topics buzzed in endless variety and confusion around the well-filled hall.

But hark! all eyes are turned to the stand, as Brigham Young is heard calling the people to come "to order," and instantly all voices are stilled; the groups at once settle down into regularity, and the thoughts of the congregation are fixed upon the words of the heartfelt opening prayer of Elder Chas. C. Rich.

As the choir began its second hymn, John turned in his seat to see if Diantha and Ellen were in their seats in the choir. Yes, Diantha stood there with her lovely form clad in its classical, simple gown of homespun, fitting her like a molded glove, while the glorious eyes and scarlet lips were as beautiful as ever. He looked at her so long, and as she was unconscious of his gaze, so earnestly, that he forgot to look for Ellen.

After the hymn was over, however, he remembered Ellen and he soon saw that her place among the altos was vacant. Where was Ellen? he wondered; she was always at meeting.

John addressed to himself some very severe reflections, and as his mind left his own affairs and became partly absorbed in the sermon which Elder Orson Hyde was preaching, he gradually became conscious that he had formed a resolution. That resolution was to forget Diantha Winthrop as speedily as possible.

Now, this was a thing which John had never before contemplated. In all his past associations with the girl, no matter what coldness, neglect or discouragements he had experienced, he had never for one moment despaired of some day winning her for his wife. He knew intuitively something of human nature, and besides that he had felt in the depths of his own soul a whispering assurance that the girl belonged to him, and that his claim to her was one which had existed before they came to this earth. Therefore he had quietly gone along, never seeking to urge himself or his attentions upon her nor indeed upon any girl; he had concealed from her as from everyone else the secret of his preference, and he had lived for years with the hope in his heart which made his daily sunshine and sweetened his every night vision. Yet now, with awakened consciousness on his part, he found himself forming an invincible resolution never again to permit his thoughts or his love to go out to this girl who had given him at one time plain encouragement, and who had since, for no reason whatever, turned upon him a colder, prouder face than she had ever done in the old days before she had guessed his secret.

He sought, with the old Puritanic inheritance of self-investigation, to fathom the cause of this resolution. He found his mind distracted from the sermon which had been so interesting, and involuntarily he turned around to look at Dian herself to see what expression she had now upon her face, and to see if perchance her looks might have had something to do with this strange decision. She looked as serene, as unconscious, as a statue. Her face looked slightly weary, as if she, too, had lost interest in the sermon, and her thoughts were on something else. But she did not look at John, and even if she knew where he sat, she seemed to avoid meeting his eyes.

As John's gaze left her witching face, and his eyes traveled over the choir seats, he observed Ellie's vacant seat, and he felt suddenly that Ellie had something to do with this decision. What and how did Ellie effect this? John was not an impulsive man, his thoughts were deep and rather slow in forming. He allowed his mind to play upon this thought which had come to him, and it seemed to him that a veritable inspiration flashed upon him that Ellie was in danger, and that she needed him. He had no superstitious notion that he could hear Ellen calling him, that is the way he would have put it to himself; yet if he had been a more imaginative man, he would have said that he could hear her voice in his soul pleading for help in her hour of extremest peril.

However it was, he was so strongly impressed that he struggled as long as he could to restrain the feeling which gave him no peace, until he finally arose and went out of the meeting, and hastened down to the home of the Tylers, and inquired for Ellen. Aunt Clara was at home, getting dinner for the rest of the folks who had gone to meeting, and she answered his knock at the door.

"Ellie, why, she is not well this morning, and she is still in bed. She did not sleep much last night, and I told her to lie still this morning, and she could perhaps go to meeting this afternoon."

John sat and chatted a while with his old friend, Aunt Clara, but he did not mention the dreadful impression which he had felt that morning, and he told himself again and again what a silly thing it was for him to give way to such notions.

He heard later from Tom Allen that Ellen was at the afternoon meeting and he added that fact to the scolding he had administered that morning to himself, and assured himself that there was plenty of time to try and persuade pretty Ellen Tyler to accept him and his home as her future destiny.

"SOUR GRAPES"

A few hours later, just in the cool edge of the late afternoon, John found himself eagerly looking over some new daguerreotypes of various of his friends in the shop of Marcena Cannon, the photographer, on Main Street. He was so busily engaged that he did not notice the slight noisy wrangle of some drunken men on the street until he saw a group of them darken the small doorway of the tiny shop. As his glance caught the fact that they were soldiers, he withdrew into the shadow and waited for developments. He was unwilling to embroil himself with these men, and yet he had caught sight of the dissolute face of Captain Sherwood in the crowd, and John remained to watch.

"Hello, Mr. Cannon," cried the tipsy captain, "we want our pictures taken. Can you take the picture of a gentleman as well as the ugly mugs of these d—d Mormons?"

The face of the photographer was drawn into a sneer of contempt for the insult thus offered himself and his associates, but he only said:

"Men in my profession must be as willing to try their hands at painting a fool as they are to take the likeness of an honest man. Are there any honest men in your party who want to pose before my camera?"

For answer the captain only leered about the shop, pausing unsteadily before first one picture and then another; finally he caught sight of a large daguerreotype of President Brigham Young, done by the enterprising pioneer photographer Marcena Cannon. Steadying himself in front of this picture, Sherwood raised his pistol, and shot through it, the bullet embedding itself in the wall behind. His marksmanship was so unsteady that only the corner of the canvas was riddled; but the soldiers surrounded their captain at once, fearing that his overt act might precipitate some trouble. Sherwood yelled out as his shot rang into the dim silence of the room:

"That's the way I'd serve the old scoundrel if I could get him in the same place."

Instantly the room filled with street-loungers, although the sound was no unusual one in those unhappy Salt Lake days. As the smoke cleared away, Captain Sherwood found himself looking down the muzzle of John Stevens' own revolver, while a cool, grating voice hissed in his ear:

"Git out, vermin."

The soldier, sobered by his own folly, found his small squad of men were vastly outnumbered by the civilian police who now crowded into the tiny room, and without further parley he assumed a braggart air, and swaggered out of the place.

"'He who runs away'," quoth Charlie Rose, who was at John's elbow by this time, "'may live to fight another day.' But then again he may not. You can't sometimes always tell. Little Captain Sherwood may reach the place of his own seeking sooner than he anticipates."

The incident only served the better to reveal the unprincipled character of a man whom already poor John hated with a righteous vigor.

As the drunken captain, now somewhat sobered by his recent escapade, clanked noisily down Main Street, followed by his squad, he saw Diantha, clad in her usual comely habit, coming toward him. Instantly alert to any possible results of this chance encounter, Captain Sherwood straightened himself, and endeavored to assume his usual elegant swagger. But if he had removed the traces of his recent debauch from his walk, it still lingered in the dusky flame which burned in cheeks and chin, and above all there still glittered in the dusk of his leering eyes that signal of danger which thrills every weak human creature who beholds that black flag. Captain Sherwood sober had much to recommend him to polite society—but Captain Sherwood drunk betrayed the devil within him. Drunk or sober, he was the acme of grace, and it was with customary lightness that he swept off his blue cap and carrying it to his heart he bowed low with exaggerated politeness to the frightened girl, now opposite him.

With small trace of the raging fear within her, the girl turned her head proudly away, and with a slight motion of mingled fear and disgust she drew her skirts aside as if to avoid possible contact, and walked coldly on, leaving a short, dismayed silence behind her, as the men watched with common interest this second rout of their dissolute companion and superior officer.

"You won't speak to me?" the captain muttered thickly to himself; "well, my tragedy queen, I know somebody who will."

To his men he only gave the word of command and the party were soon astride of their horses and riding rapidly into the south.

It was Diantha's first experience with such evil forces; and after she was well out of sight she flew to her home, with her heart clamoring at her throat for swift release. Flinging herself down upon her knees she buried her face in her pillow as she sobbed out her broken prayers to that living Father whose tender protection she had never before sought with such abject humility. After her heart had ceased to pound in her neck, she scolded herself for a stupid coward of a girl—to be frightened in broad daylight, and on Main Street, where there were plenty of good men to protect her in case of real danger. Fright has no reason, has only eyes to see and ears to hear the nameless possibilities which sweep the spirit out into formless space. Presently the still small voice of reason reached her consciousness, and as thought settled quietly down upon its throne in her troubled soul, the question flashed along her mind: "Why is that man hanging around Great Salt Lake City so often of late?" Then—"Ellen?" was questioned and answered in a second illuminating thrill of pain.

Without another moment's hesitation, Diantha sprang up, bathed her face, and the fear that had oppressed her for her own safety was transferred to her friend.

Ellen was churning in her cool, quiet buttery. She greeted Diantha coldly, then bade her bring a chair for herself from the kitchen.

"No, I will stand," answered Dian, too excited yet to talk calmly. "I have had such a fright!" And she proceeded to relate her recent experiences, not adding to nor taking from one single point; the truth was brutal enough to this sheltered, pure-minded, unsophisticated girl. With that awful truth she had come to warn and shield her dearest friend.

Ellen listened with her brooding eyes fixed upon her frothing churn-dash. When the story was fairly told, she offered no word of comment.

"What do you think of that?" asked Dian, anxious to obtain her friend's point of view.

"I don't think anything," Ellen said, at last.

"Why, Ellie, he was dead drunk."

"How could you tell such a thing as that?" asked Ellen, judicially. "What do you or I know about drunken men?"

"Oh, his eyes, and his red face—and—and—everything—" stammered Diantha, confused to be thus put at a disadvantage, and upon the witness-stand. "And there was something so terrible about him every way that I just shuddered when he looked into my eyes."

Still Ellen refused to discuss the matter. Dian persisted:

"You can't think what a fright I was in. If you could have just seen him—"

The sullen listener busied herself with her churn. And at last, she sat down to work over her butter.

"Ellie," coaxed Diantha, "what do you think about the thing, anyway?"

The weak, delicate character of the love-sick Ellen had been turned from its own natural candid sweetness into the gall of secretive obstinacy, by her concealed passion; and when she was thus adjured, she simply raised her dash to clean off the remaining globes of gold, as she said, tartly:

"If you want to know what I think about you, Dianthy Winthrop, I'll tell you—'sour grapes'!"

Diantha was too frankly surprised for a moment to do aught but stare stupidly at the lowered face opposite her. Then suddenly comprehending, she said icily, her lips drawing into a sharp line across her face:

"Do you think I have made up all this story? That I am jealous? Jealous of a vile, wicked soldier? Oh, Ellen, you surely can't think such a terrible thing as that!"

"Would it be the first time you've been jealous of me?" asked the girl. Dian's truthful memory received this home-thrust in silence; but she was not thus to be thrown from her purpose.

"But, Ellen, he was drunk! Drunk, I tell you! And he is not fit to wipe your shoes on."

"Sour grapes," muttered the scornful lips of the girl before her.

"Ellen Tyler, I came here with an honest desire to give you a friendly warning. I don't imagine for one moment that you need it any more than I do, or that you are not just as good and just as wise as I am—maybe more so. But I am beginning to see things as they are: the glamor and glory and romance which once so fascinated me is fading away, thank God—anyway as it relates to men who drink and carouse or who do wrong. And especially do I begin to see how unsafe we are associating with any man outside this Church and kingdom. I have done my best to warn you, as Aunt Clara and my brother have warned us both time and time again. We are two orphaned girls, but God has sent us repeated warnings through our best friends and guardians to listen and obey. We girls may or may not come to harm when we follow our own path, but we can never come to a good end if we disobey the counsels of those who have a right to give us such counsel. I am going to try and heed that warning counsel. I dare not disobey. It is bred in my very bone to give heed to the voice of wisdom. I felt a strong impression that you needed this warning, too, and I have given it. I think now that I shall go to Aunt Clara and tell her exactly what I have told you."

Ellen's eyes lifted quickly. But with the subtle deceit of a weak, inwardly-selfish soul she said, smoothly:

"Don't bother to tell Aunt Clara, Dian. You have told me, and I will remember all you say. It might only worry Aunt Clara when there is no need."

Only half convinced, but wholly appeased by this seeming flag of truce, Diantha chatted with her friend awhile on indifferent things and then went away, resolved to seek some convenient opportunity after the Conference was well over to have a long talk with Aunt Clara.

Alas, that we wait for these laggard opportunities, instead of boldly going out to meet them in the highway! It is well to consider well before we do evil, but good should be done on the impulse.

The next morning, which was Sunday, Ellen was at her post in the choir, and John hurried home from meeting at noon to make arrangements with a friend to take his place in the evening so that he could spend that Sunday evening visiting with Ellen.

All afternoon he gently forced his mind to dwell solely and wholly upon the real sweetness and charm of pretty Ellen Tyler. He fancied what a dear little wife she would make and he drew all sorts of domestic pictures of what home with such a fond little wife would be. He knew she was good, true, lovely, and although weak in some points, he was sure that marriage would give her all the strength and force necessary for her perfection as a woman and as a saint. Yes, John had decided to marry—not Dian Winthrop, but sweet, impulsive, pretty Ellen Tyler—if he could get her! If he could! Ah, if he only could!

WHERE IS ELLEN?

As the chill evening closed in that Sabbath night when the city was stilled of all its Conference bustle,—for Conference had been adjourned to meet again in six months—John Stevens hurried down to spend the quiet evening hours with Ellen Tyler. He had resolved to ask her to be his wife, and if she happily consented, he should insist that no delays of months or even weeks were necessary, but the sweet June month, not far away with its rose-blown days and its fragrant, mellow nights, should see their wedding day with its tender promise of loving reality.

"Well, Aunt Clara," he said to that good lady, "I am here again, you see. Who comes so often as I do?"

"No one that is half so welcome," she answered gently, with her kindly smile. "Come right in, John, and let me take your hat."

"How are you all, Aunt Clara, and I suppose I may as well out with it: where is Ellie?"

"We are well, John, and so is Ellie. She got over her little sick spell all right, and went to meeting this morning. But she is not at home tonight, nor will she be for a few days. I let her go home with the Meachams, who live in Provo, you know. I have had to be away from home so much this winter and spring, nursing the sick, that Ellen has been real lonesome. I felt a little sorry to let her go, for I don't like our girls away from home these times. However, you know I can't always have my way, and Ellen teased so long, and Brother Meacham said he would be very careful of her, and as she promised to be back inside of two weeks, I just had to let her go."

"Where did the Meachams stay, while they were here, Aunt Clara? Did they put up with you?"

"Oh, no; you know we had all of Jane's folks from Davis County, and we had eight of the new arrivals from England, some folks that Brother Kimball told to come here; they had been so kind to him while he was in England."

"I wonder where the Meachams did stay, then?" asked John, uneasily.

"I ain't sure, but I think they camped in the Tithing Yard; you know they have a good wagon, and as they are pretty independent, they would rather do for themselves than to stay with anyone, unless it was an own brother or sister."

John picked up his hat with his usual slow, decisive motion, and refusing Aunt Clara's warm invitation to stay awhile and chat with her, he left the house, with his long, swinging strides, and was soon out of the gate, on his way to the Tithing Yard. He did not stop to ask himself why he was going there, for he knew that most of the teams which had camped there would be on their hurried way for home, as soon as the Conference was once closed. Yet he walked as rapidly as was possible for him, and he told himself that all he hoped to find out was what hour the Meachams left, and who else was with Ellen Tyler.

It was a dark night in the early spring. Once inside the yard he made his way through the mass of debris and over outstretched wagon tongues to the one lone campfire burning brightly in a distant corner of the yard. The children were sitting with sleepy, bent heads upon their mother's knees, listening with all but unconscious ears as one or another gave the company the benefit of some imitation of Yorkshire dialect, or spun a yarn in canny Scotch. As John approached the group, he noted one face, with a positive start.

"James Meacham," he called out, unable to contain himself, "I thought you were on your road to Provo. I was told you had started this afternoon; and also, that you had Ellen Tyler with you, who was going with your wife and daughter to make a short visit. How is it I find you here?"

"Well, Brother John, you find me here because I am not there; I did not start, because I was not ready to start. And I haven't seen your precious young friend, Ellen Tyler; no more has my wife, nor my girl Maggie, I think. She was to be here tonight to let us know if she could go down with us. And what's more, I am wondering why it is you are so particular to know. Are you going to marry that fine young woman?"

"Where is Sister Meacham?" asked John, in a low tone, unheeding his friend's raillery.

"She is just gone to bed in the wagon. Here, Maggie," he called, at the side of the wagon, as he led the way for John, "here's John Stevens huntin' up pretty Ellie Tyler."

"Sister Meacham, have you seen Ellen today, and do you know whether she went to Provo with anyone else?"

"Why, Brother Stevens, I saw Ellie yesterday, and she told me she was going to go with us down to Provo for a day or two, but she hasn't been around today, and as I thought maybe she was wanting to get a bit readier. I asked James to wait all night and we would go down to Tyler's in the morning on our way out of town and pick Ellie up. Have you been down to her house? I guess she is there, all right."

John said a few hurried words, and then hastened away in the silent night, leaving the Meachams with a little wonder on their minds, but no suspicion of anything serious. He remembered that Ellen often stayed at Winthrops over night when Aunt Clara had to be out nursing, and he would go there before he gave way to the horrible doubts and fears that were nearly overmastering him. His knock at the door was answered by Diantha herself, and she held out her hand to John with a pretty attempt which began at serious coldness, but which ended like an invitation to forgive and forget. John did not see her outstretched hand. He was too full of other emotions to even see the welcoming sparkle in her blue eyes. He merely took off his hat and asked laconically:

"Is Ellen Tyler over here?"

"No, I've hardly seen Ellen for weeks, that is, except at a distance." Her manner was cold at once. He had come hunting another girl.

John's next words dispelled this coldness, and communicated to her something of the excited fears which tore the breast of the man before her.

"Diantha, Ellen Tyler left her home this afternoon just after meeting, telling Aunt Clara that she was going to Provo with James Meacham's family to spend a fortnight. Aunt Clara is near worn out with nursing and Conference visitors, and consented to let Ellie go for two weeks. Ellen took her clothes with her, and bade them all goodbye. She is not with the Meachams, who are still encamped in the Tithing Yard, nor is she at home nor here. Where is she?"

Diantha looked with fixed, widening eyes at the pale face before her, and she repeated slowly and mechanically, as if too stunned to think:

"Where is she?"

IS SHE AT THE CHASE MILL?

Diantha turned without another word to John, and, flying upstairs, she was down in a moment, with a shawl thrown around her shoulders and head.

"Come," she said, breathlessly.

"Where are you going?"

"Over to Aunt Clara, to ask her what to do. My brother Appleton is away, and Aunt Clara will know better than anyone else what to do."

They sped along in the cool, spring evening, not exchanging one word, for both hearts were heavy with the weight of remorse. Each knew that the word of inspiration had warned both that Ellen was on dangerous ground, and each knew that the word had not been heeded to the extent that it should have been.

"Oh, for one moment to undo the past," was the pitiful tale which each heart was telling its silent listener.

Aunt Clara's face whitened with a pallor like their own when the whole story had been told; but in spite of the sure feeling of catastrophe which assailed all three, Aunt Clara was too wise to allow fear to master her.

"Now, don't go to imagining that Ellen has run away because we can't just now get trace of her. Everything will turn out all right. You haven't half looked for her. She may have gone down with the Harpers instead of the Meachams. Or, she may have gone out to the Chase Mill, for you remember she did not see me the very last minute. She bade us goodbye before we went to meeting, for she said she would not wait till we got home, we always stay so long talking, and she wanted to get off. No, the thing to do tonight is to find out if she is at the Chase Mill. You see, if the Meachams have not gone, she may have found a chance to go down to the mill over night, thinking she could go on with them in the morning."

There was a very faint glimmering of hope in this suggestion, and without saying anything further, it was arranged that John should get permission from the President for a three days' absence from his duties as night guardsman, and then he should come for both Aunt Clara and Dian in his own light spring wagon with a cover, for Dian would not listen to the others going without her. She felt so unhappy that she could scarcely bear her own sorrow, and she would have followed them on foot, so great was her anxiety to know the whole truth about her beloved friend.

She sat with Aunt Clara, telling her, now that it was too late, all the things that she knew and suspected of Ellen; of the night of the Christmas ball and of her subsequent determination to give John up entirely to Ellen; and of how Ellen had avoided her all winter, and how she had not broken through her reserve, for she had thought it was due to a little jealousy on Ellen's part on account of John. She also told her of how skilfully Ellen had parried all her questions and all attempts to draw her out the night they slept together; lastly she told of their stormy interview the day before.

All this the girl told with streaming eyes, and broken, sobbing breaths. Her self-reproach and agony were terrible, and Aunt Clara wisely allowed the first flood of her grief to spend itself before she interrupted or tried to calm the excited girl. At last, however, the elder woman saw a chance to relieve in a measure the unnecessary remorse, and she asked gently:

"Has Ellen ever told you she was in love with the soldier you speak of?"

"No, no indeed. The very last time we had a confidential talk, she said almost in as many words that she would give anything in this world if John Stevens would fall in love with her. But that was last winter, and I have treated him as coldly as I possibly could ever since, for Ellie's sake."

"Diantha, you are taking more of this on yourself than you have any need to do; you have not helped Ellen to do wrong, and if you spoke once to this wicked soldier, it was but for the once. Purity does not consist in never being at fault, or knowing what temptation is, but it is to resist that which on reflection we know to be wrong. Ellen ought to understand this as well as you do, dear, for, oh, I have tried to train her aright. I love her as my own life. I have spent many an hour in trying to persuade her to avoid temptation. I know the poor, dear girl is vain, and that makes her weak. She lacks the strength which helps us to keep our own good opinion of ourselves. She loves admiration and pleasure so well that, always, even as a child, she would sacrifice anything else on earth for it." Poor Aunt Clara was trying to drown her own self-reproaches with philosophy and moral reflection.

"But oh, to think of Ellen gone away, and to such a horrible doom! It is too awful," and again the girl broke into a sobbing fit. It was Dian's first real grief, her first experience of life and its deepest trials.

"Diantha, I can see where I have failed with my poor Ellie; I have been so anxious to nurse and help to save the sick bodies of the poor and destitute and to administer food and raiment to the needy, that I have been at times forgetful and careless of the sick and needy soul of my precious child, who is like the child of my own body. True, I did not suspect anything of what you are now telling me. But this is not wisdom. Let us not mourn over the past, but mend the future."

At that moment John drove up, and the three rode away in the late evening darkness, to visit the Chase Mill, on the outskirts of the city, and find out if Ellen had been there. Aunt Clara's surmise was correct; Ellen had ridden down there, according to the old gentleman who tended the mill, which lay just southeast of the city. Ellen came there alone, he said, and asked for a drink of milk. She also took some bread and butter, for she said she expected to be taken up either by the Meachams or the Harpers, and she was going to spend two weeks in Provo, visiting her many friends in that place.

"How did Ellen get here?" inquired John.

"She said she came down as far as the mill with Brother Sheets. She stayed with me here about an hour, and then, seeing a dust outside coming down the main road, she walked over there, carrying her bundle of clothes, and waited for the teams. I was busy getting up the cows and feeding the stock, and did not think any more about it for about an hour, and when I looked out to the main road for her, she was gone. I went right out, and happened to meet a team going south, and I asked the driver if the Meachams or the Harpers had gone on that way a little while before, and he said he thought the Harpers were just ahead of him, as they drove out of the city about half an hour before he did. So, of course, she has gone down to Prove. If you want to stay over night, I will rig up some straw ticks, and make you as comfortable as I can."

Aunt Clara could never feel satisfied to go back to the city without learning something definite and sure about their missing girl; and so it was decided to wait over night at the farm house, and to start very early in the morning for Provo, and bring back their loved wanderer with them on their return next day.