M
ARION went about her dingy room brushing off a bit of dust here, setting a chair straight there, trying in what ways she might to brighten its homeliness. She was a trifle sore sometimes over the contrast between that room and the homes of her three friends. Sometimes she thought it a wonder that they could endure to leave the brightness and cheer that surrounded their home lives and seek her out.
There were times when she was very much tempted to spend a large portion of her not too large salary in bestowing little home-looking things on this corner of the second-rate boarding-house;a rocking-chair; a cozy-looking, bright-covered old-fashioned lounge; a tiny centre-table, instead of the square, boxy-looking thing that she had; not very extravagant her notions were, just a suggestion of comfort and a touch of brightness for her beauty-loving eyes to dwell on; but these home things, and these bright things, cost money, more money than she felt at liberty to spend.
When her necessary expenses of books and dress, and a dozen apparently trifling incidentals were met, there was little enough left to send to that far-away, struggling uncle and aunt, who needed her help sadly enough, and who had shared their little with her in earlier days.
There was no special love about this offering of hers; it was just a matter of hard duty; they had taken care of her in her orphanhood, a grave, preoccupied sort of care, bestowing little time and no love on her that she could discover; at the same time they had never either of them been unkind, and they had fed and clothed her, and never said in her presence that they grudged it; they had never asked her for any return,never seemed to expect any; and they were regularly surprised every half year when the remittance came.
But so far as that was concerned Marion did not know it; they were a very undemonstrative people. Uncle Reuben had told her once that she need not do it, that they had not expected it of her; and Aunt Hannah had added, "No more they didn't." But Marion had hushed them both by a decided sentence, to the effect that it was nothing more than ordinary justice and decency. And she did not know even now that the gratitude they might have expressed was hushed back by her cold, business-like words.
Still, the remittances always went; it had required some special scrimping to make the check the same as usual, and yet bring in Chautauqua; it had been delayed beyond its usual time by these new departures, and it was on this particular evening that she was getting it ready for the mail. For seven years, twice a year, she had regularly written her note:
Aunt Hannah:—I inclose in this letter a check for ——. I hope you are as well as usual. In haste,M. J. Wilbur.
Aunt Hannah:—I inclose in this letter a check for ——. I hope you are as well as usual. In haste,
M. J. Wilbur.
This, or a kindred sentence as brief and as much to the point. To-night her fingers had played with the pen instead of writing, and at last, with a curious smile hovering around her lip, she wrote the unaccustomed words, "Dear Aunt." It would have taken very little to have made the smile into a quiver; it seemed just then so strange that she should have no one to write that word "dear" to; that she should use it so rarely that it actually looked like a stranger to her. Then the writing went on thus:
"I hope I have not caused you discomfort by being somewhat later than usual with your check. Matters shaped themselves in such a way that I could not send it before. I hope it will be of a little help and comfort to you. I wish it were larger. Give my re—love to Uncle Reuben."
The "re" was the beginning of the word "regards," but she thought better of it and wrote "love." He was her father's brother, andthe only relative she had. Then the pen paused again, and the writer gnawed at the painted holder, and mused, and looked sober first, then bright-faced, and finally she dashed down this line:
"Dear Aunt Hannah, I have found my father's Friend, even the Lord Jesus Christ. He is indeed mighty to save, as father used to say that he was. I have proved it, for he has saved me. I wish you and Uncle Reuben knew him."Yours truly,Marion."
"Dear Aunt Hannah, I have found my father's Friend, even the Lord Jesus Christ. He is indeed mighty to save, as father used to say that he was. I have proved it, for he has saved me. I wish you and Uncle Reuben knew him.
"Yours truly,Marion."
I suppose Marion would have been very much surprised had she known what I know, that Aunt Hannah and Uncle Reuben shed tears over that letter, and put it in the family Bible. And, someway, they felt more thankful for the check than they had ever done before.
Marion did not know this, but she knew that her own heart felt lighter than usual as she hurried about her room. The girls came before she was fairly through with her preparations—a bright trio, with enough of beauty and grace and elegance about them to fairly make her room glow.
"Here we are," said Eurie. "We have run the gauntlet of five calls and a concert, and I don't know how many other things in prospective, for the sake of getting to you."
"Did you come alone?"
"No; my blessed Nell came with us to the door, and most dreadfully did he want to come in. I should have let him in, only I knew by Ruth's face she thought it awful; but he would have enjoyed the evening. Nell does enjoy new things."
"There is no special sensation about Bible verses. I presume they would have palled on him before the evening was over." This was said in Ruth's coldest tones.
"You are mistaken in that, my lady Ruth. I have found several verses in my search that have given me a real sensation. Besides which, I have proved my side beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, and I am very anxious to begin."
Marion laughed.
"I dare say we have each proved our sides to our entire satisfaction," she said. "The question is, which side will bear the test of our combinedintellects being brought to bear on it? Did you bring your Bibles, girls? Oh, yes, you are armed. Flossy, your Bible is splendid; when the millennium dawns I am going to have just such a one. By the way, won't that be a blissful time? Don't you want to live to see it? Eurie, inasmuch as you are so anxious to begin, you may do so. Let us 'carry on our investigations in a scientific way,' as Prof. Easton says. Give us your 'unanswerable argument,' and I will answer it with my unanswerable one on the other side; then if Ruth can prove to us that we are both mistaken, and each can follow her own judgment in the matter, we will be quenched, you see, unless Flossy can give a balancing vote."
"Well, in the first place," Eurie said, "I found to my infinite astonishment, and, of course, to my delight, that the Bible actually stated that there was a time to dance. Now, if there is a time for it, of course it is the proper thing to do; that just settles the whole question. How absurd it would be to put in the Bible a statement that there was a time to dance, and then to tell us that it was wrong to dance!"
"Eurie, are you in earnest or in sport?" Marion asked, at last, looking at her with a puzzled air, and not sure whether to laugh or be disgusted.
"A little of both," Eurie said, breaking into a laugh. "But now, to be serious, there really is such a verse; did you know it? I am sure I didn't. I was very much astonished; and I think it does prove something. It indicates that dancing is a legitimate amusement, and one that was indulged in during those times."
"Do you advocate its use under the same circumstances in which it was used in those times?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Was there anything peculiar in its use?"
"Didn't you follow out the references as to dancing?"
"No, indeed, I didn't. I wish I had. Does it give an account of it? That would have been better yet."
"It would have enlightened you somewhat," Marion said, laughing. "If you had been on the other side now, you would have been sure to have followed out the connection as I did; thenyou would have found that to be true to your Bible you must dance in prayer-meeting, or in church on the Sabbath, or at some time when you desired to express religious joy."
"Pooh!" said Eurie, "Now is that so?"
"Of course it's so. Just amuse yourself by looking up the references to the word in the concordance, and I will read them for our enlightenment."
"Well," said Eurie, after several readings, "I admit that I am rather glad that form of worship is done away with. I am fond of dancing, but I don't care to indulge when I go to prayer-meeting. But, after all, that doesn't prove that dancing is wrong."
"Nor right?" Ruth said, questioningly. "Doesn't it simply prove nothing at all? That is just as I said; we have to decide these questions for ourselves."
"But, Eurie, did you content yourself with just one text? I thought you were to have an army of them."
"What is the use in that?" Ruth asked. "One text is as good as a dozen if it proves one's position."
"A multitude of witnesses," Marion said, significantly; and added, "girls, Ruth has but one text in support of her position; see if she has."
"Well, I have another," said Eurie. "The wisest man who ever lived said, 'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.' Now I am sure that advocates bright, cheerful, merry times, just such as one has in dancing; and there are dozens of such verses, indicating that it is a duty we owe to society to have happy and merry times together; and a simpler way of doing it than any I know is to dance. We are not gossiping, nor saying censorious things, when we are dancing; and we are having a very pleasant time for our friends."
"'Is any merry, let him sing psalms,'" quoted Marion. "Would you like to indulge in that entertainment at the same time you were dancing; or do you think the same state of mind could be expressed as well by either dancing, or psalm-singing, as one chose?"
"Eurie Mitchell, you are just being nonsensical!" Ruth said, speaking in a half-annoyed tone. "You are not absurd enough to suppose that either of those verses are arguments in favorof dancing, or against dancing, or indeed have anything to do with the subject? What is the use in trying to make people think you are a simpleton, when you aren't."
"Dreadful!" said Eurie. "Is that what I'm doing? Now, I thought I was proving the subtle nature of myargumentativepowers. See here, I will be as sober as a judge. No, I don't think those verses have to do with it; at least the latter hasn't. I admit that I thought the fact that a time to dance was mentioned in the Bible was an item in its favor as far as it went; but it seems I should rather have said as far asIwent, for it went farther, as Marion has made me prove with that dreadful concordance of hers. We don't own such a terrible book as that, and I have to go skimming over the whole Bible in a distracting manner. I just happened on the verse that says 'there is a time to dance,' and I didn't know but there might be a special providence in it. But now, frankly, I am on the side that Ruth has taken. It seems to be a question that is left to individual judgment. There is no 'thus saith the Lord' about it, any more than there is about having company, and going out totea, and a dozen other things. We are to do in these matters what we think is right; and that, in my opinion, is all there is about it."
"Then you retire from the lists?" Marion asked.
"Not a bit of it. I am just as emphatically of the opinion that there is no harm in dancing as I ever was. What I say is, that the Bible is silent on that subject, leaving each to judge for herself."
"'As he thinketh in his heart, so is he,'" quoted Ruth. "That is my verse, one of them; and I think it is unanswerable. If you, Marion, think it is wicked to dance, then you would be doing a wrong thing to dance; but, Eurie, believing it to be right and proper, has a right to dance. Each person as he thinks in his heart."
"Then, if I think in my heart that it is right to go skating on Sunday, it will be quite right for me to go? Is that the reasoning, Ruth?"
"No, of course; because in that instance you have the direct command, 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'"
"But who is going to prove to me in what wayI should keep it holy? I may skate with very good thoughts in my heart, and feel that I am keeping the spirit of the command; and, if I think so in my heart, why, isn't it so?"
"You know it isn't a parallel case," Ruth said, slightly nettled.
"Flossy, would you speak for a dollar?" Eurie asked, suddenly turning to her. She had been utterly grave and silent during all this war of words, but, to judge from her face, by no means uninterested. She shook her head now, with a quiet smile.
"I know what I think," she said, "but I don't want to speak yet; only I want to know, Ruth, about that verse; I found that, and thought about it. I couldn't see that it means what you think it does. I used to think in my very heart that joining the church, and trying to do about right, was all there was of religion; but I have found that I was wonderfully mistaken. Can't persons be honest, and yet be very much in the dark because they have not informed themselves?"
"Why, dear me!" said Marion, "only see, Ruth, where your doctrine would lead you!What about the heathen women who think in their hearts that they do a good deed when they give their babies to the crocodiles?"
"I found that verse about Paul persecuting all who called on the name of Jesus, and he says he verily thought he was doing God's service." This was Flossy's added word.
"See here," said Eurie, "we are not getting at it at all. I haven't any verses, and you have demolished Ruth's. The way is for you and Flossy to open your batteries on us, and let us prove to you that they don't any of them mean a single word they say, oryousay; orsomething,anything, so that we win the argument. What I want to know is, what earthly harm do people see in dancing? I don't mean, of course, going to balls and mingling with all sorts of people and dancing indecent figures. I mean the way we girls have been in the habit of it, Ruth and Flossy and I. We never went to a ball in our lives, and we were never injured by dancing, so far as I can discover, and yet we have done a good deal of it. Now I love to dance; it is the very pleasantest amusement I can think of; and yet I honestly want to get at the truth of thismatter; I want to learn; I don't in the least know why churches and Christians think such dancing is wrong. I couldn't find a thing in the Bible that showed me the reason. To be sure I had very little time to look, and a very ignorant brain to do it with, and no helps. But I am ready to be convinced, if anybody has anything that will convince me."
"Just let me ask you a question," Marion said: "Why did you think, before you were converted, that it was wrong for Christian people to dance?"
"How do you know I did?" asked Eurie, flushing and laughing.
"Never mind how I know; though you must have forgotten some of the remarks I have heard you make about others, to ask me. But please tell me."
"Honestly, then, I don't know; and it is that thought, or rather that remembrance, which disturbs me now. I had a feeling that someway it was an inconsistent thing to do, and that if I was converted I should have to give it up, and it was a real stumbling-block in my way for some days. But I don't this minute know a singledefinite reason why I, in common with the rest of the girls and the young men in our set, felt amused whenever we saw dancing church-members. I have thought perhaps it was prejudice, or a misunderstanding of the Christian life."
"N
OW, what I want," said Marion, "is to have you people who are posted answer a few questions. You know I am not a dancer; I have only stood aside and looked on; but I have as high a respect for common sense as any of youcanhave, and I want to use some of it in this matter; so just tell me, is it true or not that there is a style of dancing that is considered improper in the extreme?"
"Why, yes, of course there is," Eurie said, quickly.
"Is it the style that is indulged in at our ordinary balls, where all sorts of characters are admitted,where, in fact, anyone who can buy a ticket and dress well is welcome? You know you were particular to state that none of you went to balls; are these some of the reasons?"
"Myprincipal reason is," Ruth said, with an upward curve of her haughty lip, "that I do not care to associate with all sorts of people, either in the ball-room or anywhere else."
"Besides which, you are reasonably particular, who of your acquaintances have the privilege of frequently clasping your hand and placing an arm caressingly around your waist, to say nothing of almost carrying you through the room, are you not?"
Ruth turned toward the questioner flashing eyes, while she said:
"That is very unusual language to address to us, Marion. Possibly we are quite as high-toned in our feelings as yourself."
"Oh, but now, I appeal to your reason and common sense; you say, yourself, that these should be our guide. Isn't it true that you, as a dancer, allow familiarity that you would consider positively insulting under other circumstances? Am I mistaken in your opinion as to the propertreatment that ladies should receive from gentlemen at all other times save when they are dancing?"
"It's a solemn fact," said Eurie, laughing at the folly of her position, "that the man with whom I dance has a privilege that if he should undertake to assume at any other time would endanger his being knocked down if my brother Nell was within sight."
"And it is true that there are lengths to which dancers go that you would not permit under any circumstances?"
"Undeniable," Eurie said again. "Yet I don't see what that proves. There are lengths to which you can carry almost any amusement. The point is, we don't carry them to any such lengths."
"That isn't the whole point, Eurie. There are many amusements which no one carries to improper lengths. We do not hear of their being so perverted; but we do not hear of them in the ball-room. The question is, has dancing such a tendency? Do impure people have dance-houses which it is a shame for a person to enter? Are young men and young women, our brothers andsisters led astray in them? We mustn't be too delicate to speak on these things, for they exist; and they are found among people for whom the Lord died, and many of them will be reclaimed and be in heaven with us. They are our brethren;canthey be led away by the influences of the dance? If we are all really in earnest in this matter, will you each give your opinion on this one point?"
"I suppose it is unquestionable," Ruth said, "that dance-houses are in existence, and that they are patronized by the lowest and vilest of human beings; but the sort of dance indulged in has no more likeness to the dances of cultivated society than—"
"Than the drunkard lying in the gutter bears likeness to the elegant young man of fashion who takes his social sips from a silver goblet lined with gold at his mother's refreshment table," Marion said, interrupting her, and speaking with energy. "Yet you will admit that the one may be, and awfully often is, the stepping stone to the other."
"It is true," Eurie said; "both are true. I never thought of it before, but there is no denying it."
As for Flossy, she simply bowed her head, as one interested but not excited.
"Then may I bring in one of my verses, 'Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, and to keep himselfunspottedfrom the world.' Does that apply? If the world can carry this amusement to such depths of degradation, and if the elegant parlor dance is orcanbe in the remotest degree the first step thereto,arewe keeping ourselves unspotted if we have anything to do with it, countenance it in any way? Don't you see that the question, after all, is the same in many respects as the card-playing one? We have been over this ground before.
"Suppose we grant, for argument's sake, that not one of you is in danger of being led away to any sort of excess, and I should hardly dare to admit it in my own case, because of a verse in this same old book, 'Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall;' but if itshouldbe so, let me give you another of my selections—rather, let me read the entire argument."
Whereupon she turned to the tenth chapter of First Corinthians and read St. Paul's argumentabout eating meat offered to idols, pausing with special emphasis over the words, "Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other." "Did I understand you to say, Eurie, that it is a very general belief among dancers that Christians are inconsistent who indulge in this amusement."
"It is a provoking truth that there is. Don't you know, Ruth, how we used to be merry over the Symonds girls and that young Winters who were church-members? Well, they made rather greater pretensions with their religion than some others did, and that made us specially amused over them."
"Then, Eurie, wasn't their influence unfortunate on you?"
"I am not on your side, Mistress Wilbur. You should have more conscience than to keep me all the time condemning myself!"
"That is answer enough," Marion said, smiling. "I am only asking for information, you know. I never danced. But in the light of that confession, hear this: 'But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat forwhom Christ died. Let not,then, your good be evil spoken of.' Isn't that precisely what you were doing of the good in those church-members, Eurie? Now a sophist would possibly say that the argument of Paul had reference to food offered to idols, and not to dancing; but I think here is a chance for us to exercise that judgment and common sense which we are so fond of talking about.
"The main point seems to be not to destroy those for whom Christ died. Does it make any difference whether we do it with our digestive organs or with our feet? But what is the sophist going to do with this: 'It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.' You see he may, or may not, be a fool for allowing himself to be led astray. St. Paul says nothing about that. He simply directs as to the Christian's duty in the matter."
Ruth made a movement of impatience.
"You are arguing, Marion, on the supposition that a great many people are led astray by dancing; whereas I don't believe that to be the case."
"Do you believe one soul ever was?"
"Why, yes, I suppose so."
"We even know one," Eurie said, speaking low, and looking very grave.
"Do you believe it is possible that another soul may in the next million years?"
"Of course it is possible."
"Then the question is, how much is one soul worth? I don't feel prepared to estimate it, do you?" To which question Ruth made no reply "There is another point," Marion said. "You young ladies talk about being careful with whom you dance. Don't you accept the attentions of strange young gentlemen, who have been introduced to you by your fashionable friends? Take Mr. Townsend, the young man who came here a stranger, and was introduced in society by the Wagners, because they met him when abroad. Didn't you dance with him, Eurie Mitchell?"
"Dozens of times," said Eurie, promptly.
"And Flossy, didn't you?"
Flossy nodded her golden head.
"Well, now you know, I suppose, that he has proved to be a perfect libertine. Honestly,wouldn't you both feel better if he had never had his arm around you?"
"Marion, your way of saying that thing is simply disgusting!" Ruth said, in great heat.
"Is it my way of saying it, or is it the thing itself?" Marion asked, coolly. "I tell you, girls, it is impossible to know whether the man who dresses well, and calls on you at stated intervals, looking and talking like a gentleman, is not a very Satan, who will lead away the pretty guileless, unsuspecting young girl who is worth his trouble; and the leading often and often commences with a dance; and the young girl may never have been allowed to dance with him at all had not stately and entirely unexceptionable leaders of society, like our Ruth here, allowed it first.
"It is the same question after all, and it narrows down to a fine point. A thing that can possibly lead one to eternal death, a Christian has no business to meddle with, even if he knows of but one soul in a million years who has been so wrecked. In all this we have not even glanced at the endless directions to 'redeem the time,' to be 'instant in season and out of season,to 'work while the day lasts,' 'to watch and be sober.' What do all these verses mean? Are we obeying them when we spend half the night in a whirl of wild pleasure?
"The fact remains that a majority of people are not temperate in their dancing; they do it night after night; they long after it, and are miserable if the weather, or the cough, keeps them away. I know dozens of such young ladies; I have them as my pupils; my heart trembles for them; they are just intoxicated with dancing; and they quote you, Ruth Erskine, as an example when I try to talk with them; I have heard them. Whether it is wrong for other people or not, as true as I sit here I can tell you this: I have two girls in my class who are killing themselves with this amusement, carried to its least damaging extreme, for they still think they are very careful with whom they dance; and you are in a measure, at least, responsible for their folly. You needn't say they are simpletons; I think they are, but what of it? 'Shall theweakbrother perish for whom Christ died?'"
"Nell made a remark that startled me a little,it was so queer." Eurie said this after the startled hush that fell over them at the close of Marion's eager sentence had in part subsided. "We were speaking of a party where we had been one evening and some of the girls had danced every set, till they were completely worn out. Some of them had been dancing with rather questionable young men, too; for I shall have to own that all the gentlemen who get admitted into fashionable parlors are not angels by any means. I know there are several, who are supposed to be of the first society, that father has forbidden me ever to dance with.
"We were talking about some of these, and about the extreme manner in which the dancing was carried on, when Nell said: 'I'll tell you what, Eurie, I hope my wife wasn't there to-night.' 'Dear me!' I said, 'I didn't know she was in existence. Where do you keep her?' He was as sober as a judge. 'She is on the earth somewhere, of course, if I am to have her,' he said; 'and what I say is, I hope she wasn't there. If I thought she was among those dancers, I would go and knock the fellow down who insulted her by swinging her around in that fashion.I want my wife's hand to be kept for me to hold; I don't thank anybody else for doing that part for me.'"
"Precisely!" Marion said. "It is considered unladylike, I believe, for people to talk about love and marriage. I never could see why; I'm sure neither of them is wicked. But I suppose each of us occasionally thinks of the possibility of having a friend as dear even as a husband. How would you like it, girls, to have him spend his evenings dancing with first one young lady and then another, offering them attentions that, under any other circumstances, would stamp him as a libertine?
"Whichever way you look at this question it is a disagreeable one to me. I may never be married; it is not at all likely that I ever shall; I ought to have been thinking about it long ago, if I was ever going to indulge in that sort of life; but if Ishould, I'm heartily glad of one thing—and, mind, I mean it—that no man but my husband shall ever put his arm around me, nor hold my hand, unless it is to keep me from actual danger; falling over a precipice, you know, or some such unusual matter as that."
"Flossy hasn't opened her lips this evening. Why don't you talk, child? Does Marion overwhelm you? I don't wonder. Such a tornado as she has poured out upon us! I never heard the like in my life. It isn't all in the Bible; that is one comfort. Though, dear me! I don't know but the spirit of it is. What do you think about it all?"
"Sure enough," Marion said, turning to Flossy, as Eurie paused. "Little Flossy, where are your verses? You were going to give us whatever you found in the Bible. You were the best witness of all, because you brought such an unprejudiced determination to the search. What did you find?"
"My search didn't take the form I meant it should," Flossy said. "I didn't look far nor long, and I did not decide the question for anybody else, only for myself. I found only two verses, two pieces of verses; I mean, I stopped at those, and thought about them all the rest of the week. These are the ones," and Flossy's soft sweet voice repeated them without turning to the Bible:
"'Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do allin the name of the Lord Jesus;''Whatsoeverye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.' Those verses just held me; I thought about dancing, about all the times in which I had danced, and the people with whom I had danced, and the words we had said to each other, and I could not see that in any possible way it could be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, or that it could be done heartily, as unto the Lord. I settled my own heart with those words; that for me to dance after I knew that whatever in word or deed I did, I was pledged to doheartilyfor theLord, would be an impossibility."
An absolute hush fell upon them all. Marion looked from one to the other of the flushed and eager faces, and then at the sweet drooping face of their little Flossy.
"We have spent our strength vainly," she said, at last. "It is our privilege to get up higher; to look at all these things from the mount whereon God will let us stand if we want to climb. I think little Flossy has got there."
"After all," Eurie said, "that verse would cut off a great many things that are considered harmless."
"What does that prove, my beloved Eureka?" Marion said, quickly. "'If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee,' is another Bible verse. These verses of Flossy's mean something, surely. Whatdothey mean, is the question left for us to decide? After all, Ruth, I agree with you; it is a question that must be left to our judgment and common sense; only we are bound to strengthen our common sense and confirm our judgments in the light of the lamp that is promised as a guide to our feet."
Almost nothing was said among them after that, except the commonplaces of good-nights. The next afternoon, as Marion was working out a refractory example in algebra for Gracie Dennis, she bent lower over her slate, and said:
"Miss Wilbur, did you know that your friends, Miss Erskine, Miss Shipley and Miss Mitchell, had all declined Mrs. Garland's invitation, and sent her an informal little note signed by them all, to the effect that they had decided not to dance any more?"
"No," said Marion, the rich blood mounting to her temples, and her face breaking into a smile. "How did you hear?"
"Mrs. Garland told my father; she said shehonored them for their consistency, and thought more highly of their new departure than she ever had before. Itisrather remarkable so early in their Christian life, don't you think?"
"Rather," Marion said, with a smile, and she followed it by a soft little sigh.Shehad not been invited to Mrs. Garland's. There was no opportunity for her to show whether she was consistent or not.
I
T was curious how our four girls set about enlarging the prayer-meeting. That idea had taken hold of them as the next thing to be done.
"The wonder was," Eurie said, "that Christian people had not worked at it before. I am sure," she added, "that if anyone had invited me to attend, I should have gone long ago, just to please, if it was one that I cared to please."
And Marion answered with a smile:
"I am sure you would, too, with your present feelings."
Still none of them doubted but that they would have success. They saw little of each other during the days that intervened, and their plan necessarily involved the going alone, or with what company they could gather, instead of meeting and keeping each other company, as they had done in the first days of their prayer-meeting life.
Marion came first, and alone. She went forward to their usual seat with a very forlorn and desolate air. She had entered upon the work with enthusiasm, and with eager desire and expectation of success. To be sure she was a long time deciding whom to ask, and several times changed her plans.
At last her heart settled on Miss Banks, the friend with whom she had almost been intimate before these new intimacies gathered around her. Latterly they had said little to each other. Miss Banks had seemed to avoid Marion since that rainy Monday when they came in contact so sharply. She was not exactly rude, nor in the least unkind; she simply seemed to feel that the points of congeniality between them were broken, and so avoided her.
She did this so successfully, that, even after Marion's thought to invite her to the meeting had taken decided shape, it was difficult to find the opportunity. Having gotten the idea, however, she was persistent in it; and at last, during recess, on the very day of the meeting, she came across her in the library, looking aimlessly over the rows of books.
"In search of wisdom, or recreation?" Marion asked, stopping beside her, and speaking with the familiarity of former days.
"In search of some tiresome references for my class in philosophy. Some of the scholars are provokingly in earnest in the study, and will not be satisfied with the platitudes of the text-book."
"That is a refreshing departure from the ordinary state of things, isn't it?" Marion asked, laughing at the way in which the progress of her pupils was put. Then, without waiting for an answer, and already feeling her resolution beginning to cool, she plunged into the subject that interested her. "I have been in search of you all the morning."
"That's surprising," Miss Banks said, coolly."Couldn't I be found? I have been no further away than my school-room?"
"Well, I mean looking for you at a time when you were not engaged, or perhaps looking forward to seeing you at such a time, would be a more proper way of putting it," said Marion, trying to smile, and yet feeling a trifle annoyed.
"One is apt to be somewhat engaged in a school-room during school-hours, especially if one is a teacher."
They were not getting on at all. Marion decided to speak without trying to bring herself gracefully to the point.
"I want to ask a favor of you. Will you go to meeting with me to-night?"
"To meeting," Miss Banks repeated, without turning from the book-case. "What meeting is there to-night?"
"Why, the prayer-meeting at the First Church. There is always a meeting there on Wednesday nights."
Miss Banks turned herself slowly away from the book she was examining and fixed her clear, cold gray eyes on Marion:
"And so there has been every Wednesdayevening during the five years that we have been in school together, I presume. To what can I be indebted for such an invitation at this late day?"
It was very hard for Marion not to get angry. She knew this cold composure was intended as a rebuke to herself for presuming to have withdrawn from the clique that had hitherto spent much time together.
"What is the use of this?" she asked; a shade of impatience in her voice, though she tried to control it. "You know, Miss Banks, that I profess to have made a discovery during the last few weeks; that I try to arrange all my actions with a view to the new revelations of life and duty which I have certainly had; in simple language you know that, whereas, I not long ago presumed to scoff at conversion, and at the idea of a life abiding in Christ, I believe now that I have been converted, and that the Lord Jesus is my Friend and Brother; I want to tell you that I have found rest and peace in him. Is it any wonder that I should desire it for my friends? I do honestly crave for you the same experience that I have enjoyed, and to that end Ihave asked you to attend the meeting with me to-night."
It is impossible to describe the changes on Miss Banks' face during this sentence. There was a touch of embarrassment, and more than a touch of incredulity, and over all a look of great amazement. She continued to survey Marion from head to foot with those cold, gray eyes, for as much as a minute after she had ceased speaking. Then she said, speaking slowly, as if she were measuring every word:
"I am sure I ought to be grateful for the trouble you have taken; the more so as I had not presumed to think that you had any interest in either my body or my soul. But as I have had no new and surprising revelations, and know nothing about the Friend and Brother of whom you speak, I may be excused from coveting the like experience with yourself, however delightful you may have found it. As to the meeting, I went once to that church to attend a prayer-meeting, too, and if there can be a more refined and long drawn-out exhibition of dullness than was presented to us there, I don't know where to look for it. I wonder why the school-belldoesn't ring? It is three minutes past the time by my watch."
Marion, without an attempt at a reply, turned and went swiftly down the hall. She was glad that just then the tardy bell pealed forth, and that she was obliged to go at once to the recitation-room and involve herself in the intricacies of algebra.
Without this incentive to self-control, she felt that she would have given way to the hot disappointed tears that were choking in her throat. How sad her heart was as she sat there alone in the prayer-room. It was early and but few were present. She had never felt so much alone. The companionship which had been so close and so constant during the few weeks past seemed suddenly to have been removed from her, and when she essayed to go back to the old friend, she had stood coldly and heartlessly—aye, worse than that—mockingly aloof.
She had overheard her, that very afternoon, detailing to one of the under teachers, fragments of the conversation in the library. Marion's heart was wounded to its very depths. Perhaps it is little wonder that she had made no otherattempt to secure company for the evening. There were school-girls by the score that she might have asked; doubtless some one of the number would accept her invitation, but she had not thought so. She had shrunken from any other effort, in mortal terror.
"I am not fitted for such work," she said, in bitterness of soul; "not even forsuchwork; whatcanI do?" and then, despite the class, she had brushed away a tear. So there she sat alone, till suddenly the door opened with more force than usual, and closed with a little bang, and Eurie Mitchell, with a face on which there glowed traces of excitement, came like a whiff of wind and rustled into a seat beside her, alone like herself.
"You here?" she said, and there was surprise in her whisper. "Thought you would be late, and not be alone. I am glad of it—I mean I am almost glad. Don't you think, Nell wouldn't come with me! I counted on him as a matter of course, he is so obliging—always willing to take me wherever I want to go, and often disarranging his own engagements so that I need not be disappointed. I was just as sure of him Ithought as I was of myself, and then I coaxed him harder than I ever did before in my life, and he wouldn't come in." He came to the door with me, and said I needn't be afraid but that he would be on hand to see me home, and he would see safely home any number of girls that I chose to drum up, but as for sitting in here a whole hour waiting for it to be time to go home, that was beyond him—too much for mortal patience!
"Wasn't it just too bad! I was so sure of it, too. I told him about our plans—about our promise, indeed, and how I had counted on him, and all he said was: 'Don't you know the old proverb, sis: "Never count your chickens before they are hatched;" or, a more elegant phrasing of it, "Never eat your fish till you catch him?" Now, I'm not caught yet; someway the right sort of bait hasn't reached me yet.' I was never so disappointed in my life! Didn't you try to get some one to come?"
"Yes," said Marion, "and failed." She forced herself to say that much. HowcouldEurie go through with all these details? "If her heart had ached as mine does, she couldn't," Mariontold herself. She might have known if she had used her judgment that Eurie's heart was not of the sort that would ever ache over anything as hers could; and yet Eurie was bitterly disappointed.
She had counted on Nell, and expected him, had high hopes for him; and here they were dashed into nothingness! Who knew that he could be so obstinate over a trifle? Surely it was a trifle just to come to prayer-meeting once! She knew she would have done it for him, even in the days when it would have been a bore. She did not understand it at all.
Meantime, Ruth had been having her experiences. This promise of hers troubled her. Perhaps you cannot imagine what an exceedingly disagreeable thing it seemed to her to go hunting up somebody to go to prayer-meeting with her. Where could she turn? There were so few people with whom she came in contact that it would not be absurd to ask.
Her father she put aside at once as entirely out of the question. It was simply an absurdity to think of asking him to go to prayer-meeting! He rarely went to church even on the Sabbath;less often now than he used to do. It would simply be annoying him and exposing religion to his contempt; so his daughter reasoned. She sighed over it while she reasoned; she wished most earnestly that it were not so; she prayed, and she thought it was with all her heart, that God would speak to her father in some way, by some voice that he would heed; and yet she allowed herself to be sure that his only and cherished daughter had the one voice that could not hope to influence him in the least.
Well, there was her friend, Mr. Wayne. I wonder if I can describe to you how impossible it seemed to her to ask him to go? Not that he would not have accompanied her; he would in a minute; he would do almost anything she asked; she felt as sure that she could get him to occupy a seat in the First Church prayer-room that evening as she felt sure of going there herself; but she asked herself, of what earthly use would it be?
He would go simply to please what he would suppose was a whim of hers; he would listen with an amused smile, slightly tinged with sarcasm, to all the words that would be spoken thatevening, and he would have ready a hundred mildly funny things to say about them when the meeting closed; for weeks afterward he would be apt to bring in nicely fitting quotations gleaned from that evening of watchfulness, fitting them into absurd places, and making them seem the veriest folly—that would be the fruit.
Ruth shrank with all her soul from such a result; these things were sacred to her; she did not see how it would be possible to endure the quizzical turn that would be given to them. I want you to notice that in all this reasoning she did not see that she had undertaken not only her own work but the Lord's. When one attempts not only to drop the seed, but tomakethe fruit that shall spring up, no wonder one stands back appalled!
Yet was she not busying her heart with the results? The end of it was that she decided whatever else she did, to say nothing to Mr. Wayne about the meeting. No, I am mistaken, that was not the end; there suddenly came in with these musings a startling thought:
"If I cannot endure the foolishness that willresult from one evening, how am I to endure companionship for a lifetime?"
That was a thought that would not slumber again. But she must find some one whom she was willing to ask to go to prayer-meeting; there was her miserable promise hedging her in.
Who was she willing to ask? She ran over her list of acquaintances; there wasn't one. How strange it was! She could think of those whom Flossy might ask, and there was Eurie surrounded by a large family; and as for Marion, her opportunities were unlimited; but for her forlorn self, in all the large circle of her acquaintance, there seemed no one to ask. The truth was, Ruth was shiveringly afraid of casting pearls before swine—not that she put it in that way; but she would rather have been struck than to have been made an object of ridicule. And yet there were times when she wished she had lived in the days of martyrdom! The church of to-day is full of just such martyr spirits!
The result was precisely what might have been expected: she dallied with her miserable cowardice, which she did not call by that nameat all, until there really was no person within reach to invite to the meeting. Who would have supposed all this of Ruth Erskine! No one would have been less likely to have done so than herself.
She went alone to the meeting at a late hour, and with a very miserable, sore, sad heart, to which Marion's was nothing in comparison. Yet there was something accomplished, if she had but known it. She was beginning to understand herself; she had a much lower opinion of Ruth Erskine as she sat there meeting the wondering gaze of Eurie, and the quick, inquiring glance of Marion than she ever had felt in her life.
I said she was late, but Flossy was later. Somebody else must have been at work about that meeting, and have been more successful than our girls, for the room was fuller than usual. Marion had begun to grow anxious for the little Flossy that had crept so near to their hearts, and to make frequent turnings of the head to see if she were not coming.
When at last she shimmered down the aisle, a soft, bright rainbow, for she hadn't given overwearing her favorite colors, and she could no more help getting them on becomingly than a bird can help looking graceful in its plumage. (Why should either of them try to help it?) But Flossy was not alone; there was a tall portly form, and a splendidly balanced head, resting on firm shoulders, that followed her down to the seat where the girls were waiting for her.