'Here we're alone and unhindered; and if the plan
shouldn't happen to work well, (I don't see why it shouldn't, though,)
no harm will be done. I've had a deal of hard work in my life, and I've
been badgered and bullied so much by your strait-laced professors,
that I'm glad to get away from the world for a spell, and talk and do
rationally, without being laughed at.'
"'Yes,' answered Hollins, 'and if we succeed, as I feel we shall, for I
think I know the hearts of all of us here, this may be the commencement
of a new _ee_poch for the world. We may become the turning-point between
two dispensations: behind us everything false and unnatural,--before us
everything true, beautiful, and good.'
"'Ah,' sighed Miss Ringtop, 'it reminds me of Gamaliel J. Gawthrop's
beautiful lines:--
"Unrobed man is lying hoary
In the distance, gray and dead;
There no wreaths of godless glory
To his mist-like tresses wed,
And the foot-fall of the Ages
Reigns supreme, with noiseless tread."'
"'I am willing to try the experiment,' said I, on being appealed to by
Hollins; 'but don't you think we had better observe some kind of order,
even in yielding everything to impulse? Shouldn't there be, at least, a
platform, as the politicians call it,--an agreement by which we shall
all be bound, and which we can afterwards exhibit as the basis of our
success?'
"He meditated a few moments, and then answered,--
"'I think not.
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