The gates ajar. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

152 The Gates Ajar.
you know, and one of your sentimental girls
that reads poetry, and is easy enough led away
by vain delusions and false doctrine - was
under your charge at Sunday school. Now
Clotildy is intimate with my wife, - who is her
aunt on her mother's side, and always tries to
do her duty by her, - and she told Mrs. Quirk
what you'd been a saying to those young
minds on the Sabbath."
He stopped, and observed her impressively,
as if he expected to see the guilty blushes of
arraigned heresy covering her amused, attentive face.
"I hope you will pardon me, ma'am, for
repeating it, but Clotildy said that you told
her she should have a pianna in heaven. A
piannZa, ma'am "
" I certainly did," she said quietly.
"You did? Well, now, I did n't believe it,
nor I would n't believe it, till I'd asked you!
I thought it warn't more than fair that I
should ask you, before repeating it, you know.
It's none of my business, Mrs. Forceythe, any
more than that I take a general interest in the
spiritooal welfare of the youth of our Sabbath
school; but I am very much surprised! I am
very much surprised "