"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 circ.u.mstances, 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 I _should_, 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 all in the name of the Lord Jesus;" _"Whatsoever_ ye 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 do _heartily_ for the _Lord_, 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 G.o.d 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.
What _do_ they 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 Mitch.e.l.l, 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 she honored them for their consistency, and thought more highly of their new departure than she ever had before. It _is_ rather 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. _She_ had not been invited to Mrs. Garland"s. There was no opportunity for her to show whether she was consistent or not.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER XIX.
KEEPING THE PROMISE.
IT 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 cla.s.s in philosophy. Some of the scholars are provokingly in earnest in the study, and will not be satisfied with the plat.i.tudes 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 Wednesday evening 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 I have 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 embarra.s.sment, 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-bell doesn"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.