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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ester Ried Yet Speaking, by Isabella Alden
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ester Ried Yet Speaking
+
+Author: Isabella Alden
+
+
+Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9091]
+This file was first posted on September 4, 2003
+Last Updated: May 20, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESTER RIED YET SPEAKING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by J. Erickson, T. Allen, B. Trapaga and
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ESTER RIED
+
+YET SPEAKING.
+
+By Pansy
+
+
+Author Of "Mrs. Solomon Smith Looking On," "Hall In The Grove," "A New
+Gift On The Family Tree," "Five Friends," "Mary Burton," "The Pocket
+Measure," "Ester Ried," Etc., Etc.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I. IT MAY BE THAT SHE IS WORKING STILL
+
+CHAPTER II. WHAT DID IT ALL AMOUNT TO, ANYHOW?
+
+CHAPTER III. ANYTHING UNCOMMON ABOUT ME?
+
+CHAPTER IV. I DON'T BLAME THEM
+
+CHAPTER V. A CHRISTIAN HOME
+
+CHAPTER VI. SATAN HE HAS 'EM ALL THE WEEK
+
+CHAPTER VII. WHAT A LITTLE SCHEMER IT IS
+
+CHAPTER VIII. WHAT WOULD YOU DO, DEAR?
+
+CHAPTER IX. "TREMENDOUS FACTS!" HE SAID
+
+CHAPTER X. AND SHE ALWAYS TRIED
+
+CHAPTER XI. I HAVE BUT TO TRY AGAIN
+
+CHAPTER XII. I WANT THEM TO GET USED TO PARLORS
+
+CHAPTER XIII. LET US BE FASHIONABLE
+
+CHAPTER XIV. "SOMETHING'S HAPPENED!"
+
+CHAPTER XV. WHAT MADE HER DIFFERENT?
+
+CHAPTER XVI. HERE WAS HIS OPPORTUNITY
+
+CHAPTER XVII. I WONDER WHAT THEY'RE ALL AFTER
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. YOURN'S THE WAY
+
+CHAPTER XIX. WE HAVE BEGUN BACKWARDS
+
+CHAPTER XX. OH, WHAT A NICE THOUGHT!
+
+CHAPTER XXI. HAD HIS EXPERIMENT BEEN TOO SEVERE?
+
+CHAPTER XXII. SOME PEOPLE ARE HARD TO WARN
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. PART OF THE GREAT WELL-TO-DO WORLD
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. FOR YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT MAY COME
+
+CHAPTER XXV. WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH?
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. "O LORD, TAKE DIRK TOO!"
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. AN AWFUL PROBLEM
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. MAY SHE GO WITH ME?
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. WHAT IF I BELONGED?
+
+CHAPTER XXX. IT IS NO MADE-UP AFFAIR
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+"IT MAY BE THAT SHE IS WORKING STILL."
+
+
+It was raining drearily, and but few people were abroad--that is, few,
+comparatively speaking, though the streets seemed full of hurrying,
+dripping mortals. In the large dry-goods store business was by no means
+so brisk as on sunny days, and one of the younger clerks, whose station
+was near a window looking out upon the thoroughfare, had time to
+stand gazing at the passers-by. They did not seem to interest him
+particularly, or else they puzzled him. His young, handsome face wore
+a thoughtful look, almost a troubled expression about the eyes, which
+seemed to be gazing beyond the passers-by. Just across the aisle from
+him, a lady, seated in one of the easy chairs set for the accommodation
+of shoppers, waited and watched him,--a young and pretty woman,
+tastefully, even elegantly dressed, yet her costume was quite in
+keeping with the stormy day. The young man's face seemed to have special
+interest for her, though he apparently was unaware of her existence.
+A close observer would have discovered that she was watching him with
+deeply interested eyes. Whatever served to hold the thoughts of
+the young man apparently grew in perplexity, for the troubled look
+continually deepened. At last, forgetting the possible listener, he
+addressed the dripping clouds, perhaps,--at least, he was looking at
+them:--
+
+"I don't know how to do it; but something ought to be done. It is worse
+than folly to expect good from the way that things are now managed.
+Ester would have known just what, and how; and how interested she would
+have been! I try to do her work, and to 'redeem the time;' but the
+simple truth is, I don't know how, and nobody else seems to."
+
+These sentences were not given all at once, but murmured from time to
+time at his unsympathetic audience outside.
+
+Patter, patter, patter, drip, drip, drip! steady, uncompromising
+business. It was all the answer the clouds vouchsafed him.
+
+With the listener inside it was different. The interested look changed
+to an eager one. She left her seat and moved toward the absorbed young
+man, breaking in on his reverie with the clearest of voices:--
+
+"I beg your pardon,--but are you thinking of your sister? You are
+Mr. Ried, I believe? I have heard of your sister's life, and of her
+beautiful death, through a dear friend of my husband, who loved Ester.
+I have always wanted to know more about her. I wanted to get acquainted
+with you, so I might ask you things about her. I am waiting now for my
+husband to come and introduce us. But perhaps it isn't necessary. Do you
+know who I am?"
+
+"It is Mrs. Roberts, I believe?" the young man said, struggling with his
+astonishment and embarrassment.
+
+"Yes, and you are Mr. Alfred Ried. Well, now we know each other without
+any further ceremony. Will you tell me a little about your sister, Mr.
+Ried? You were thinking of her just now."
+
+"I was missing her just now," said he, trying to smile, "as I very often
+am. I was a little fellow when she died; but the older I grow the more
+difficult I find it to see how the world can spare her. She was so full
+of plans for work, and there are so few like her."
+
+"It may be that she is working still, in the person of her brother."
+
+He shook his head energetically, though his face flushed.
+
+"No, I can only blunder vaguely over work that I know she, with her
+energetic ways and quick wits, could have done, and done well. It
+happens that she was especially interested in a class of people of whom
+I know something. They need help, and I don't know how to help them. It
+seems to me that she could have done it."
+
+"Will you tell me who the people are?"
+
+"It is a set of boys for whom nobody cares," he said, speaking sadly;
+"it hardly seems possible that there could ever have been a time when
+anybody cared for them, though I suppose their mothers did when they
+were little fellows."
+
+Thus spoke the ignorant young man,--ignorant of the depths to which sin
+will sink human nature, but rich in the memory of mother-love.
+
+"I think of my sister Ester in connection with them," he said, speaking
+apologetically, "because she was peculiarly interested in wild young
+fellows like them; she thought they might be reached,--that there might
+be ways invented for reaching them, such as had not been yet. She had
+plans, and they were good ones. I thought so then, little fellow that I
+was, and I think so now, only nobody is at work carrying them out; and I
+wonder sometimes if Ester could have been needed in heaven half as much
+as she is needed on earth. She used to talk to me a great deal about
+what might be done. I think now that she wanted to put me in the way of
+taking up some of the work that she would have done; but she mistook her
+material. I can't do it."
+
+"Are you sure? You are young yet, and besides, you may be doing more
+than you think. Couldn't I help? What is there that needs doing for
+these particular young men?"
+
+"Everything!" he said, excitedly. "If you should see them you would get
+a faint idea of it. They come occasionally down to the Sabbath-school
+at the South End; in fact, they come quite frequently, though I'm sure
+I can't see why. It certainly isn't for any good that they get. Their
+actions, Mrs. Roberts, surpass anything that I ever imagined."
+
+"Who is their teacher?"
+
+"That would be a difficult question to answer. They have a different
+teacher every Sabbath. No one is willing to undertake the class twice.
+They have tried all the teachers who attend regularly, and several who
+have volunteered for once, and never would attempt it a second time.
+Just now, there is no one who will make a venture."
+
+"Have you tried?"
+
+He shook his head emphatically.
+
+"I know at least so much. Why, Mrs. Roberts, some of them are as old as
+I, and, indeed, I think one or two are older. No; we have secured the
+best teachers that we could for them, but each one has been a failure. I
+suppose they must go."
+
+"Go where?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"What an awful question! Where _will_ they go, Mrs. Roberts, if we let
+them slip now?"
+
+He was tremendously in earnest. One could not help feeling that he had
+studied the possibilities, and felt the danger.
+
+"Suppose I try to help! Shall I come and take that class next Sabbath?"
+
+This simple, directly-put question brought the young man suddenly from
+the heights of his excitement into visible embarrassment. He looked down
+on the small, fair lady, reaching hardly to his shoulder, attired in
+that unmistakable way which bespeaks the lady of wealth and culture, and
+could imagine nothing more incongruous than to have her seated before
+that class of swearing, spitting, fighting boys. Not that her wealth or
+her culture was an objection, but she looked so utterly unlike what he
+had imagined their teacher must be,--she was so small, so frail, so
+fair and sweet, and ignorant of the ways of the great wicked world, and
+especially of those great wicked boys! What could he say to her?
+
+He was so manifestly embarrassed that the small lady laughed.
+
+"You think I cannot do it," she said, almost gayly.
+
+He hastened to answer her.
+
+"Indeed, you have no idea of the sort of class it is. I have given you
+no conception of it; I cannot. You would think yourself before a set of
+uncaged animals."
+
+"Yes, and in case of failure I should only be where the others are, who
+have tried and failed. If you will introduce me, and your superintendent
+will let me, I mean to try; and that will relieve you of the dilemma of
+being entirely without a teacher for them."
+
+Young Ried had nothing to say. He thought the attempt a piece of
+folly,--a worse than useless experiment; but how was he to say so to the
+wife of his employer?
+
+That gentleman appeared just then, making haste.
+
+"I was unavoidably detained," he explained; "I feared you would grow
+weary of waiting. Ah, Ried, my wife has introduced herself, I see. Is he
+the young man you were speaking of, Mrs. Roberts?"
+
+"The very young man,--Ester Ried's brother. He doesn't know how glad
+I am to have met him. Some day when we are better acquainted, and you
+trust me more fully, I am going to tell you how I became so deeply
+interested in your dear sister. Meantime this little matter should be
+definitely settled. Mr. Roberts, I have invited myself to take a class
+to-morrow down at the South End Mission."
+
+"Have you, indeed?"
+
+Mr. Roberts spoke heartily, and seemed by no means dismayed,--only a
+trifle perplexed as to details.
+
+"How can we manage it, Flossy? My prison class takes me in an opposite
+direction at the same hour, you know."
+
+"Yes, I thought of that; I propose to ask Mr. Ried to call for me, and
+show me the way, and vouch for my good intentions after I reach there.
+Do you suppose he will do it?" She looked smilingly from her husband to
+young Ried, and both waited for his answer.
+
+"I obey directions," he said, bowing respectfully to Mr. Roberts. "Am I
+to have the honor of being detailed for that service to-morrow?"
+
+"So Mrs. Roberts says," was the good-humored reply, and then the
+merchant took his wife away to their waiting carriage that had drawn up
+before the door, leaving Alfred Ried, if the truth must be told, in a
+fume.
+
+"Much she knows what she is talking about!" he said, jerking certain
+boxes out of their places on the shelves, and then banging them back
+again, seeming to suppose that he was by this process putting his
+department in order for closing. "Little bit of a dressed-up doll! They
+will tear her into ribbons, metaphorically, if not literally, before
+this time to-morrow! She thinks, because she is the wife of Evan
+Roberts, the great merchant, she can go anywhere and do anything, and
+that people will respect her. She has never had anything to do with
+a set of fellows who care less than nothing about money and position,
+except to be ten times more insolent and outrageous in their conduct
+than they would if she had less of it! I shall feel like a born idiot in
+presenting this pretty little doll to teach that class! Mr. Durant will
+think I have lost what few wits I had! What can possess the woman to
+want to try? It is just because she has no conception of what she is
+about! But Mr. Roberts must know--I wonder what he means by permitting
+it?"
+
+In very much the same state of mind did our young man pilot his new and
+unsought-for recruit into the crowded mission rooms of the South End on
+the following Sabbath afternoon. She looked not one whit less able to
+compete with the terrors which awaited the teacher of the formidable
+class.
+
+Her dress was simplicity itself, according to Mrs. Roberts' ideas of
+simplicity; yet, from the row of ostrich tips that bobbed and nodded at
+each other, all around the front of her velvet hat, to the buttons of
+her neat-fitting boots, she seemed to bring a new atmosphere into the
+room.
+
+Yesterday's rain was over, and the pleasant south windows were aglow
+with sunshine. As Mrs. Roberts sat down the sunbeams came and played
+about her face, and she seemed in keeping with them, and with nothing
+else around her.
+
+The superintendent bestowed curious glances on her during the opening
+exercises. He had seen the shadow on young Ried's face when he seated
+her, and had found time to question.
+
+"Whom have we here?"
+
+"Mrs. Evan Roberts. She wants to try the vacant class! _I_ did not ask
+her, Mr. Durant; she invited herself."
+
+Mr. Durant looked over at her, and tried to keep his eyes from smiling.
+
+"She looks very diminutive in every way for such an undertaking. They
+will frighten her out before she commences, will they not?"
+
+"I presume so; but I didn't know what to do. She wanted to come, and I
+could not tell her she must not."
+
+"No, of course,--the occasion is too rare to lose. Very few people ask
+the privilege of trying that class. There is no teacher for them to-day;
+and your Mrs. Roberts must learn by experience that some things are more
+difficult than others. I will let her try it."
+
+Meantime, "the boys" of the dreaded class were studying the new face.
+She was the only person not already seated before a class, and they
+naturally judged that she was to be their next victim. They looked at
+her and then at one another, and winked and coughed and sneezed and
+nudged elbows and giggled outright, every one of them,--meantime chewing
+tobacco with all their might, and expectorating freely wherever he
+judged it would be most offensive.
+
+Alfred Ried watched them, inwardly groaning. Being used to their faces,
+he could plainly read that they anticipated a richer time than usual,
+and rejoiced greatly over the youth and beauty of their victim.
+
+But young Ried was not the only one who watched. Mrs. Roberts, without
+seeming to be aware of their presence, lost not a wriggle or a nudge.
+She was studying her material; and it must be confessed that they
+startled her not a little. They represented a different type of
+humanity from her Chautauqua boys, or her boys in the old church at
+home,--rather, an advanced stage of both those types.
+
+When Mr. Durant came toward her, the look on his face was not
+reassuring, it so plainly said that he expected failure, and was sorry
+for her as well as for himself. However, with as good grace as he could
+assume, he led her to the seat prepared for the teacher, and gave her a
+formal introduction.
+
+"Boys, this is Mrs. Roberts, who is willing to try to teach you to-day.
+I _wish_ you would show her that you know how to behave yourselves."
+
+Mrs. Roberts wished that he had left her to introduce herself, or that
+he had said almost anything rather than what he did; the mischievous
+gleam in several pairs of eyes said that they meant to show her
+something that they considered far more interesting than that.
+
+Many were the sympathetic glances that were bestowed on the young and
+pretty lady as she went to her task. As for Alfred Ried, there was more
+than sympathy in his face. He was vexed with the young volunteer and
+vexed with himself.
+
+He told himself savagely that this was what came of his silly habit of
+thinking aloud. If only he had kept his anxieties about that class to
+himself, Mrs. Roberts would never have heard of it, and been tempted to
+put herself in such a ridiculous position; and if this episode did not
+break him of the habit, he did not know what would.
+
+He was presently, however, given a class of small boys, with enough
+of original and acquired depravity about them to keep him intensely
+employed, and the entire school settled to work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+"WHAT DID IT ALL AMOUNT TO, ANYHOW?"
+
+
+Settled, that is, so far as the class of boys in the corner would permit
+the use of that term. _They_ had not settled in the least. Two of them
+indulged in a louder burst of laughter than before, just as Mrs. Roberts
+took her seat. Yet her face was in no wise ruffled.
+
+"Good afternoon," she said, with as much courtesy as she would have used
+in addressing gentlemen. "I wonder if you know that I am a stranger in
+this great city? You are almost the first acquaintances that I am making
+among the young people, and I have a fancy that I would like to have you
+all for my friends. Suppose we enter into a compact to be excellent and
+faithful friends to one another? What do you say?"
+
+What were they to say? They were slightly taken back, surprised into
+listening quietly to the close of the strange sentence, and then giving
+no answer beyond violent nudges and aside-looks. What did she mean?
+Was she "chaffing" them? This was unlike the opening of any lesson! It
+certainly could not be the first question on the lesson-paper; nor did
+it sound like certain well-meant admonitions to "try to improve the
+opportunity" and "learn all that they could." With each of these
+commencements they were entirely familiar; but this was something new.
+
+"Do you agree to the compact?" she asked, while they waited, her face
+bright with smiles.
+
+"Dunno about that," said one whom she very soon discovered occupied the
+position of a ringleader; "as a general thing, we like to be kind of
+careful about our friendships; we might strike something that wasn't
+quite the thing with people in our position. You can't be too careful in
+a big city, you know."
+
+It is impossible to give you an idea of the impishness with which this
+impudent answer was jerked out, to the great amusement of the others,
+who laughed immoderately.
+
+It suited Mrs. Roberts to treat the reply with perfect seriousness and
+composure.
+
+"That is very true," she said, courteously; "but at the same time I
+venture to hope that since you know nothing ill of me as yet, you will
+receive me into a sort of conditional friendship, with the understanding
+that I remain your friend until I am guilty of some conduct that ought
+to justify you in deserting me. I am sure you cannot object to that; and
+now, if we are to be friends, we should know each other's names. I am
+Mrs. Evan Roberts, and I live at No. 76 East Fifty-fifth Street. I shall
+be glad to see you at my house whenever you would like to call on me.
+Now, will one of you be kind enough to introduce himself and the class?
+Perhaps you will introduce me to your friends?"
+
+She looked directly at the ringleader.
+
+"Certainly! certainly, mum!" he replied, briskly. "This is Mr. Carrot
+Pumpkins, at your service, mum--this fellow on my left, I mean; rather
+a queer name, I dare say you think. It all came of his being fond of
+sitting astride of a pumpkin when he was a little shaver, and of his
+hair being exactly the color of carrots as you can see for yourself. And
+this fellow on my right is Mr. Champion Chawer, so called because he can
+make the biggest run on tobacco of any of the set, taking him day in and
+day out. That fellow at your elbow is 'Slippery Jim.' We don't call him
+'Mister,' because he doesn't stay long enough in one place to have it
+tacked on to him. He is such a slippery scamp that an eel is nowhere,
+compared to him."
+
+During this rapid flow of words the listeners, who evidently admired
+their leader, became so convulsed with laughter as to lose all vestige
+of respectability, and Mr. Durant's disturbed face appeared in view.
+
+"Boys, this is perfectly disgraceful!" he said, speaking in sharp and
+highly-excited tones,--"perfectly disgraceful! I don't know why you wish
+to come here to disturb us in this way Sabbath after Sabbath! But we
+have really endured enough. There is a policeman at the foot of the
+stairs, and he can easily call others to his help; so now if you wish to
+remain here you must behave yourselves."
+
+During the deliverance of this sentence some of the boys gave mimic
+groans, one of them whistled, and others kept up a running comment:--
+
+"A policeman! oh good! that's little Duffer, I know! We've seen him
+before! Wouldn't mind giving him a chase to-day, just for exercise, you
+know, mum."
+
+"I say, boys, let's cut and run, the whole caboodle of us. We can
+jump these seats at one bound, and take the little woman along on our
+shoulders for a ride! Shall we do it?" This from the leader, who in time
+came to be known as "Nimble Dick."
+
+"Bah! no!" replied a third; "let's stick it out and see what she's got
+to say; she's a new party. Besides, we can't give her the slip in that
+way; we're friends of hers, you know."
+
+"Mrs. Roberts," said the distressed Mr. Durant, in a not very good
+undertone, "I think you will have to give it up. They are worse than
+usual this morning. We have endured much from them, and I must say that
+my patience is exhausted. Will you not take the seat at the other end of
+the room?"
+
+"Not unless they wish me to."
+
+The people who had known Flossy Shipley well would have detected a
+curious little quiver in her voice, which meant that she was making a
+strong effort at self-control; but a stranger would hardly have observed
+it.
+
+"Do you wish me to go away, young gentlemen?"
+
+The scamps thus appealed to, looked at one another again, as if in doubt
+what to say. This again was new ground to them. Policemen they were
+accustomed to. At last Nimble Dick made answer:--
+
+"No, I'm bound if we do; it comes the nearest to looking like a lark of
+anything that we have had in a long time. I say, Parson, go off about
+your business and let us alone. We was having a good time getting
+acquainted till you come and spoiled it. We'll be as sober as nine
+deacons at a prayer-meetin'. And look out how you insult this young
+woman; she's a friend of ours, and we're bound to protect her. No asking
+of her to change her seat; she's going to sit right here to the end of
+the chapter."
+
+Mr. Durant looked his willingness to summon the police at once, but Mrs.
+Roberts' voice, evenly poised now, took up the story:--
+
+"Thank you; then I will stay. And since it is getting late, suppose we
+lose no more time. There was something about which I wanted to tell
+you. But a few evenings ago I attended a gathering where I saw some very
+singular things. A gentleman in the party was tied with a strong rope,
+hands and feet, as firmly as two men could tie him,--people who knew how
+to tie knots, and they did their best; yet while we stood looking at him
+he shook his hand free and held it out to them. How do you think it was
+done?"
+
+"Sham knots!" said one.
+
+"No, for my husband was one of the gentlemen who tied him, and he
+assured me that he tied the rope as firmly as he could. Besides, more
+wonderful things than that were done. I tied my own handkerchief into at
+least a dozen very hard knots, and gave it to him, and I saw him put it
+in a glass of water, then seize it and shake it out, and the knots were
+gone. I saw him take two clean glasses, and pour water from a pitcher
+into one, and it seemed to turn instantly to wine; then he poured that
+glass of wine into the other empty glass, and immediately it turned back
+to water, or seemed to. Dozens of other strange things he did. I should
+really like to tell you about them all. I will, at some other time; but
+just now I think you would like to know _how_ he did them."
+
+"_How_ he did them!" "As if you could tell!" "_Can_ you tell?" "Pitch
+in, mum; I'd like to hear that part myself!" These were some of the
+eager answers.
+
+Had the little teacher, under the embarrassments of the occasion, taken
+leave of her senses? Actually she was bending forward, opened Bible
+turned face downward on her knee, engaged in describing in somewhat
+minute detail the explanations of certain slight-of-hand performances
+which she had recently seen! What idea of the sacredness of the office
+of teacher, and the solemnity of the truths to be taught, had she?
+
+The boys were listening, their heads bent forward all around her. What
+of that? They would have listened equally well to a graphically-told
+story of a Fourth Avenue riot, and been equally benefited, you think?
+They did not know just when the speaker slipped from the events of last
+week to the events of more than three thousand years ago. Indeed, so
+ignorant were they of all past history, that they were not even aware
+that she went back into the past; for aught they knew, she might have
+gone, on Wednesday of last week to see the man who could untie knots by
+magic, and on Thursday to see the men who could drop canes on the ground
+that would appear to turn into wriggling serpents. But there was one
+statement that proved too much for their credulity.
+
+"You could not imagine what occurred next," said the bright-faced
+teacher. "The cane or rod that the first man had dropped, actually
+opened its mouth and swallowed the other rods that seemed to be
+serpents, and was left there alone in its triumph!"
+
+"Oh, bosh!" said Nimble Dick, contempt expressed in the very curve of
+his nose, "that's too steep; I don't believe a word of it! These fellows
+can do lots of queer things; I've seen 'em perform, myself; but they
+never made a live thing yet; I've heard folks that know, say so."
+
+"Precisely what I wanted to reach," said Mrs. Roberts, with animation.
+"You are right, they never did; and you have discovered just the
+difference between them and the one man of whom I have been telling you.
+_He_ worked by the power of God; he distinctly stated that he did; and
+that God really turned his rod into a serpent, and allowed it to swallow
+the imitations of life, and then turned it back again into a rod, to
+show that nothing was beyond his power."
+
+"Did you see the thing done?" questioned a young skeptic, running his
+tongue into his cheek in a skillful way, and distorting his whole face
+with a disagreeable leer. He began to suspect that he was being cheated
+into listening to a Bible story.
+
+Mrs. Roberts was prompt with her answer:--
+
+"Oh, no, I did not, neither did I see the great fire that you had in
+this city about a year ago. At that time I was a thousand miles away;
+and it so happens that I have never talked with any person who did see
+it, yet I know there was a great fire, and many buildings were burned,
+and lives lost. It has been proved to me."
+
+"Oh, well," said skeptic number two, while number one retired into
+silence to speculate over this answer, "fires are common enough things;
+anybody can know that they happen; but it ain't such a common affair to
+see a stick turn into a serpent and swallow up other serpents. I've seen
+them fellows make things that looked like snakes, myself; I could
+most swear to it that I'd seen them wriggle; but they never did no
+_swallowing_."
+
+"That is, they did not give unmistakable signs that they were alive. But
+do you think it too strange a thing for God to do? Surely he can make
+life! How is it that you are here, breathing, talking, thinking, if
+there is no power anywhere to make life?"
+
+"Oh, I came from a tadpole," said the boastful young scientist, putting
+his thumbs under his arms, and affecting an air of great wisdom. "I know
+all about that; I was there, and see the things wriggle."
+
+Evolution staring her in the face in a corner class in a mission
+school;--a class that had been gathered from the slums! Mrs. Roberts did
+not know that these are the very places in which to find it in all its
+coarseness. Yet she made haste to meet the boy on his own ground.
+
+"Very well, if you choose to take that view of it. Was not the tadpole
+alive? Where did the _life_ come from? You insist that the story I
+have been telling you is untrue because you know that none of these
+sleight-of-hand performers have ever, or _can_ ever make actual life!
+That it is an impossible thing for human beings to do. Yet when I tell
+you that _God_ did it you refuse the statement. How are you going to
+account for life? If, in its very lowest forms, it cannot be made by men
+who have given all their time to the study of the marvellous, how is
+it that it is everywhere about us, unless I am correct, and there is a
+Power that can produce life?"
+
+Not a boy among them had heard the term "evolution;" knew anything
+about "the survival of the fittest." They were entirely ignorant of
+"protoplasm" or "bioplasm;" yet not one of them but had caught the
+meaning of some of these terms as they had been translated for them into
+the vernacular of the city slums; not one in the class but perceived
+that their champion arguer had been met on his own ground and
+vanquished. Not with an outburst of horror; he had not even been
+informed that he was irreverent. Nimble Dick delighted in making each
+teacher tell him this; he had merely been replied to in the calmest of
+argumentative tones, and called upon to account for the facts in his
+own statements, and had been unable to do so. The crowd broke into a
+derisive laugh, and were noisy, it is true, and brought troubled frowns
+to the face of their superintendent, and made the flush on Alfred Ried's
+face deepen; yet if both these anxious watchers had known it, it was
+worthy of note that the laugh had been at the expense of one of their
+number, and not at their teacher.
+
+"Well, go on," interposed the youngest and quietest of the group. "Tell
+us some more about your old fellow with his serpents. Did they stay
+swallowed, and what did it all amount to, anyhow?"
+
+Thus challenged, Mrs. Roberts gave her whole heart to the business of
+giving, in as dramatic a manner as she could, the closing scenes in the
+act performed in Egypt so long ago, carefully avoiding any reference
+to time, and mentioning no names, using only modern terms, and an
+exceedingly simple conversational form of language. She was, however,
+presently interrupted with a question:--
+
+"When did all this happen? And why don't somebody do something like it
+nowadays?"
+
+Ignoring the first question, Mrs. Roberts adroitly gave herself to the
+second.
+
+"Why don't you find your pleasure in tumbling around on the floor,
+playing with a bright-colored marble or two as you did when a child? The
+world was in its childhood when God taught the people in this way. He
+has given them just as wonderful lessons since, but lessons more suited
+to men and women who have learned to think and reason. We don't like to
+be always treated as children."
+
+Whether they really dimly understood the meaning or not is possibly
+doubtful, yet it appealed to their sense of dignity in so indirect a
+way, that they did not themselves realize what inclined them to quiet
+for a moment, while she finished her sentence earnestly. In the midst
+of the quiet the closing-bell rang, and the seven young scamps seemed
+at once to take into their hearts seven other spirits worse than
+themselves, and behaved abominably during the closing exercises, and
+tumbled out of the door over each other, in the wildest fashion, the
+moment the signal was given, halting only to say, in the person of their
+leader:--
+
+"You be on hand next Sunday; we like your yarns first rate."
+
+Mrs. Roberts, with glowing cheeks, and eyes behind which there were
+unshed tears, made her way to the desk where Mr. Durant was standing,
+and spoke quickly:
+
+"There is a difference between others who have tried it and myself, Mr.
+Durant. The sentence in Mr. Ried's account that gave me courage was,
+'Every one has failed, so far; people are unwilling to take the class a
+second time.' I have failed, but I want to try again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+"ANYTHING UNCOMMON ABOUT ME?"
+
+
+Though they rushed out with even more noise than usual, every boy
+of them knew that the noise was to cover a certain sense of
+shame-facedness, because they had actually been beguiled into listening
+quietly for a few minutes to earnest words.
+
+Directly they had reached the privacy of the street they became quieter.
+
+"I say, boys," said Nimble Dick, "is that an awful green one, or a new
+kind?"
+
+"New, I should say," replied one of the younger boys; "she ain't like
+anything that's been in that room since we got acquainted with it. I
+don't know her style, myself."
+
+"What do you take it she meant by that stuff about being friends, and
+telling us where she lived, and all that?"
+
+"Dunno what she meant; but she ain't _green_, you may bet your head on
+that. I'll tell you what I think, boys: I b'lieve she knows what she is
+about, every time."
+
+What this sage conclusion amounted to, one not acquainted with the
+dialect of the street might have been at a loss to understand, but the
+rest of the party received it in grave silence and nods of the head, as
+though it were a thought that needed careful investigation. In common
+parlance, Jerry Tompkins had expressed the opinion that Mrs. Roberts had
+some point to gain in being so uncommonly polite and attentive to them,
+and they were curious to know what the motive could possibly be.
+
+They considered the important question in silence until they reached
+the next corner; then Nimble Dick, tossing back his head as one who had
+thrown off an abstruse problem, and would have none of it, said:--
+
+"Well, what next? We've got through with that fun for to-day. What are
+you going to do, boys? Say we go around to Poke's, and see what is going
+on there?"
+
+To this proposition there was eager agreement from all the party save
+one; he maintained a somewhat moody silence.
+
+"What say, Dirk?" the leader asked, addressing him; "are you ready for
+Poke's?"
+
+"No; I don't think I'll go around, just now."
+
+"What, then? If you've got something better on hand, why don't you let a
+fellow know? We're not dying for Poke's place."
+
+"I haven't got a thing on hand; only I don't care about going there."
+
+"Where, then?"
+
+"Nowhere."
+
+"Nowhere! Mean place. Too cold weather to stop in the streets. There'll
+be a good fire at Poke's. You come along; don't go to getting the sulks;
+it ain't becoming, just after you've been to Sunday-school."
+
+But the young fellow persisted in gloomily refusing to join them, and
+presently they began to tease, in what they meant to be a good-natured
+way.
+
+"Dirk's struck," said one. "That yellow-haired party has got him by
+the throat; I saw her looking at him most uncommon sharp, when she was
+telling that biggest story of hers, about the serpent that swallowed.
+Dirk he thinks he's been swallowed by one of 'em; he feels it choking in
+his throat."
+
+"No," said another, "that ain't it; Dirk's a-going to get pious. That's
+his last dodge; I've seen the spell coming on, for some time. Didn't
+you see him pick up that there Bible and lay it on the seat the other
+Sunday, after Jerry's elbow knocked it off by mistake? I've been scared
+about Dirk ever since; and now he won't go to Poke's! It's a bad sign. I
+say, Dirk, maybe there's going to be a prayer-meeting down your way, and
+you wouldn't mind letting us come?"
+
+They expected him to laugh, but his face grew blacker than before, and
+at last he said, in very significant tones:--
+
+"You better hold up there, Scrawly, if you don't want to try the depth
+of that gutter."
+
+"Leave him be," said Nimble Dick, quickly; "he's going into one of
+his tantrums. When he begins like that, there's no end to the fighting
+that's in him; and I don't want a row now,--it's too early in the day;
+besides, I know something that's better fun. You fellows come along with
+me, and let him go."
+
+As this was said in a sort of undertone as Dirk strode on ahead; and
+when, at another corner, he dashed down it, leaving them all, there was
+no call after him. He was free to go where he would, and for reasons
+that he himself could not have explained he chose that it should be
+home,--that is, the place which he called home. It might not meet your
+ideas of what a spot so named should be. The road to it led through one
+of the meanest portions of the city. Each foot of the way the houses
+seemed to grow more squalid looking, and the streets filthier. The
+particular alley down which he dived at last was narrower and blacker
+than any yet passed, and the cellar door which he pushed open let him
+into the meanest-looking house in the row,--a long, low, dark room. In
+one corner there was the remnant of a stove, braced up by bricks and
+stones, but no fire was burning therein, though the day was cold.
+Furniture there was none, unless the usual rickety table and two broken
+chairs could be called by that name. A door was ajar that led into an
+inner cellar, and a glimpse of piles of offensive looking rags, that
+were called "bed-clothes" by the family, might have given you an idea of
+what their home life was, as hardly any other phase of it can. The rags
+were not all in the further cellar, however; a gay patch-work quilt, or
+at least one that had once been gay, but from which bits of black cotton
+now oozed in every direction, seemed to have curled itself in a heap
+against the one window. However, it moved soon after Dirk opened the
+door, and showed itself to be more than a quilt. Inside was a young
+girl, the quilt wrapped around her closely, drawn up about her face and
+head, as if she would hide all but her eyes within, and try to get rid
+of shivering.
+
+"You home?" she said, her tones expressing surprise, but at the same
+time indifference. "What is it for?"
+
+"Because I wanted to come. Hasn't a fellow a right to come home if he
+wants to?"
+
+"Of course; and it's such a lovely home, and you are so fond of it, no
+one need wonder at your coming in the middle of the day."
+
+The sentence was sarcastic enough, but the tones were hardly so; they
+expressed too much indifference even for sarcasm.
+
+Dirk surveyed her thoughtfully; he seemed to have no answer ready. In
+fact, his face wore almost a startled air, and really the thought which
+presented itself for consideration was startling. Something about the
+face of the girl, done up so grotesquely in her ragged quilt, suggested
+the lady who had been his teacher at the Mission! Could one find a
+sharper contrast than existed between these two? Yet Dirk, as he looked,
+could not get away from it.
+
+"What are you staring at?" the girl asked, presently, growing uneasy
+over the fixedness of his gaze. "Do you see anything uncommon about me?"
+
+"Where's mother?" he asked, dropping his eyes, and turning from her.
+
+"In there, asleep. You needn't talk quite so loud; it won't hurt her to
+get a bit of rest. She sat up till morning, poking at your old coat."
+
+Dirk looked down at it thoughtfully. There had been an attempt to make
+it decent, although the setting of the patches showed an unpractised
+hand, and they were of a strikingly different color from the coat
+itself.
+
+"You might have done it for her, then, in the daytime," he said,
+briefly, and added, "Where's father?"
+
+The girl shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"How should I know? Where he is most of the time; you know more about it
+than I do, or ought to; you live on the street."
+
+He gave her an answer which seemed to surprise her:--
+
+"I say, Mart, what is the use in being so horrid cross all the time?"
+
+"You are so good-natured," she said, "and everything is so nice and
+pleasant around me, it is a wonder that I should ever be cross!"
+
+"That's all lost, Mart, for I never said I was good-natured, nor thought
+I was; and if I don't know just how hateful things are, I should like
+to know who does! But, after all, what good does it do to snarl? Why
+couldn't you and me say a good-natured word once in a while, just for a
+change?"
+
+"Try it," she said; "I wish you would! I'm so tired of things as they
+now are, that most any change would be fine. But I'll risk your doing
+much in that line; it isn't in you."
+
+What was there in this cross girl to remind any one in his senses of
+Mrs. Evan Roberts? Yet even as she spoke that last ungracious sentence,
+she turned a little, so that a slant beam of sunshine--one of the few
+that ever found its way into this dreary room--laid a streak of light
+just across her hair, yellowing it until it was almost the shade that he
+had noted in the lady at the Mission; and he thought of her again, and
+wondered curiously whether, if Mart were dressed in the shining black
+dress, and fur wraps and feather-decked bonnet that the lady had worn,
+she would really resemble her. How would Mart look dressed up, he
+wondered; even decently dressed, as the girls were whom he met on the
+streets. He had never seen her in anything much more becoming than the
+ragged quilt. He was studying her in a way that Mart did not in the
+least understand. She broke the spell suddenly again:--
+
+"Have you had any dinner?"
+
+"Dinner? Why, no! of course not! Where would I find that sort of thing?
+I looked all up and down the streets, and smelled plenty of it, but not
+a bite did I get."
+
+"Where have you been?"
+
+"Oh, around in several places; not much of anywhere."
+
+"I know where you've been,"--a severe light coming into her eyes;
+"you've been down to the South End, and if I was you I'd be ashamed of
+myself! I know how you fellows go on down there. Sallie Calkins goes,
+and she told me all about it. She said that she was ashamed to live
+on the same street with any of you, and that none of the folks in the
+Mission knew what to do with you, and the next thing you knew you would
+all be marched off to the lockup."
+
+"Let them try it," muttered Dirk, his face growing darker; "we'd make
+that street too hot to hold them in short order if they played at any
+such game as that, and I guess they know it."
+
+"Well, anyhow, I wouldn't be meaner and lower down than I had to be,
+Dirk Colson! It is bad enough as it is,--a drunkard for a father, and we
+nothing more than beggars! But I'd behave myself half-way decent when I
+went among folks that wanted to be good to me, or else I'd stay away."
+
+"Look here, you keep your preaching for them that wants to hear it; I
+don't. A fellow can't come home without having a row; if it isn't of one
+kind, it's another. I wonder I ever come home at all."
+
+Dirk was angry now, and his dark, thin face looked fierce with passion.
+His sister kept the curiously composed tone and manner with which she
+had said all her exasperating things.
+
+"I wonder you do," she said. "I suppose you get starved, and can't help
+it, now and then. There's some dinner I saved for you. If you want it,
+eat it, and then take yourself to some place that suits you better."
+
+As she spoke, she jerked open the door of a little cupboard near which
+she stood, and brought therefrom a much-cracked plate, on which lay
+a baked potato, with one end broken or bitten off, then carefully
+replaced, as if the owner might have had a second thought as to its
+disposal; there was also a bit of corn-bread, somewhat burned, and half
+of a roasted apple.
+
+Meagre as the fare was for a hungry boy, there was more variety than he
+had expected, and something in the simple preparation touched him, and
+quieted his anger.
+
+"Where did this come from?" he asked, taking in the unaccustomed morsel
+of apple with two eager bites. "I tell you, that is good!"
+
+"Sally Calkins gave it to me last night. She got one give to her
+somewhere."
+
+Just as the last bite was gone, it occurred to Dirk, first to wonder,
+and then to be almost certain, that his sister, having shared the apple,
+had saved her entire share for him. It was not the first time he had
+known of such an effort on her part to supply him with food. Had he
+thought of it sooner he would certainly have left a bit of the dainty
+for her; but no thought of telling her so, for an instant crossed his
+mind. Neither had she, on her part, the slightest idea of describing to
+him with what care and patience she and Sallie had roasted the choice
+morsel before Sallie's fire, only last night,--Sallie's father being
+fortunately late in coming, and so giving them a chance; then she had
+borne hers home in a bit of paper, and carefully guarded it all day,
+just for this hour. Also, she might have told him that she bit the end
+from the potato before she remembered that there would be none left for
+him, and then fitted it on again as best she could, and went without.
+She would not have told him for worlds. Why? She could not have
+explained why. Something within her shrank from letting him know, not
+that she sacrificed for him, but that she _cared_ enough for him to want
+to do it!
+
+Potato and corn-bread were gone, to the last crumb; it seemed to Dirk
+that there had been only enough of them to show him how hungry he was.
+
+"I suppose there isn't anything more?" he said, wistfully, with the
+rising inflection, indeed, but not as one who had any idea of receiving
+an affirmative answer.
+
+"I should think there wasn't!"--defiance in the tone--"there's a piece
+of bread that I kept for mother's supper, and I mean she shall have it."
+
+"Well, don't bite me! I'm perfectly willing that she shall. Isn't there
+anything for a fire?"
+
+"Only some chips that I'm saving till mother has her nap out."
+
+"You better go to bed yourself, then; it's awful cold here."
+
+"I ain't going to stir from this corner so long as this streak of light
+lasts. It isn't so very often I see it that I can afford to lose it."
+
+Her brother turned and looked at her. She had gathered the folds of the
+ragged quilt about her again, and was crouching at the low window, and
+the very last gleam that the sunshine would vouchsafe them came and
+glimmered in her hair.
+
+There it was again,--that mysterious, haunting resemblance! What would
+Mart think if he told her of it? Probably that he was trying to poke
+fun at her. At least, he should not experiment. Yet he could not help
+wondering again, how Mart would look if she were dressed like other
+people.
+
+"I say, Mart," he began, suddenly, breaking the stillness, "let's you
+and I get out of this, where it is warmer. Come and take a walk down on
+the avenue; the sun will shine yet for half an hour, and it is real warm
+and bright."
+
+"In this quilt?" she asked, significantly, looking down at it.
+
+The boy's face darkened.
+
+"Hasn't your shawl got out of pawn yet?"
+
+"How should it?"
+
+He flung himself angrily out of the broken chair, picked up his ragged
+cap, and strode angrily and noisily across the room, out at the door,
+stumbling up the steps, like one half-blind with disgust or rage, and
+went on swift feet down the street out of sight. And Mart, poor Mart,
+left thus to solitude, let the last beam of the sun go without watching,
+and buried her face in the ragged quilt and cried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+"I DON'T BLAME THEM."
+
+
+It was not a "pet" name. Poor Mart Colson would not have known what to
+do with a pet name. Her life had not taught her how to use such phrases;
+how she came to be named Martha, she did not know; but a hollow-eyed,
+sad-voiced woman could have told her of a country home, long ago, where
+there were daffodils blowing in the early spring, almost under the snow;
+where, later, the earth was turned into sky, or the stars came down and
+gleamed all over her father's fields, so plentiful were the dandelions;
+and the breath of the clover came in at all the open windows, and the
+cows--her father's cows--coming home from pasture, and the tinkle of
+their bells were sights and sounds familiar to her ear. She sat there
+one summer evening, in the back-door, watching the glory and the peace,
+and studying, between times, her Sabbath lesson. Often and often the
+words came back to her in future years. "Now Jesus loved Martha and her
+sister and Lazarus." That was one of the verses. Was it a dim memory of
+the words, and a sort of blind reaching out after their fulfilment, that
+led her to name her poor little two-days-old baby, Martha? The old home
+had vanished, the sweet-scented meadows, the tinkling bells, the peace
+and the plenty, were as utterly things of the past as though they had
+not been. Mother, and father, and one brother, were gone, lying in
+grass-grown, neglected graves; and she--why the two-days-old
+baby's father was _drunk_; and had been for three weeks! A hard,
+hateful-sounding word,--coarse, almost. Why don't I say intoxicated? Oh,
+because I can't! I've no desire to find smooth-sounding words with which
+to cover the sin of that baby's father. But the mother named her Martha.
+She never told her why, if, indeed, she herself fully knew; it was not
+a family name. Gradually, after the fashion of the times, she sought to
+shorten the name; and because they had not sweet, short words, as "Pet,"
+and "Dear" and "Sweet,"--all such belong to happy homes,--they grew to
+calling her Mart. And now even she herself hardly realized that she had
+ever owned to any other call. Poor Mart! I find myself wanting to use
+the adjective over and over again when I speak of her. Such a desolate,
+loveless life! Always a drunken father,--she had never known any other;
+always a sharp-toned, weary-eyed, disheartened mother, who shut her
+tenderness for the child within herself, as one who could not afford to
+show it. Then Dirk, the one brother, going astray almost as soon as
+he was born. What wonder, from such a home? Yet Mart wondered and felt
+bitter over it. Why could not Dirk be like some others of whom she knew?
+Like Sallie Calkin's brother, for instance, who worked day and night,
+and brought home, often and often, an apple, or a herring, or sometimes
+even a picture paper for Sallie! Mart was sharp-tongued; all her life
+had taught her to be so. She spoke sharp words out of the bitterness of
+her heart at Dirk, and of late rarely anything but sharp words, yet--and
+this was Mart's secret, hidden away as if it were something of which to
+be ashamed--she _loved_ Dirk, loved him fiercely, with all the pent-up
+wealth of her young heart; and often, _because_ she loved him, she was
+harsh and bitter towards him, though she did not herself understand why
+this should be.
+
+As for Dirk, he walked rapidly but for a few blocks; his dinner had been
+too insufficient to give him strength, after the first aimless anger had
+subsided. Then came the question what to do with himself. Why hadn't he
+gone with the fellows? More than likely some of them had contrived a way
+to get a dinner. Why had he persisted in sullenly leaving them all and
+going home?
+
+He had not the least idea why he had been impelled to go home. Now
+that he was fairly away from home again, he had no idea what to do with
+himself. A place where he could warm his feet and his hands, where
+he could get a bite to eat, possibly,--this last would be an immense
+attraction, but was not a necessity, and he did not expect it,--but
+warmth, at least, he felt that he must have. Where would he find it?
+What place had been provided for such as he? He ought by this time to
+have been earning his own living, to have had a corner which he could
+call home, earned by himself, where some of the decencies of life were
+gathered. Of course he ought; but the painful fact to meet just now, was
+that he had not done his duty. He had gone astray; not so far but that
+there were plenty of chances to go farther, greater deeps to which he
+might yet reach, but far enough to all but break any watchful mother's
+heart; only that _his_ mother's heart was broken before he was born. The
+simple question waiting to be solved was this: Having done as poorly for
+himself as under the circumstances he well could, what was Dirk Colson
+to do next? He had no idea; neither, apparently, had multitudes of
+Christian people engaged in praying that the Father's will might be done
+on earth, even as it was in heaven. The young man walked six blocks down
+the respectable avenue, lined with pleasant homes, where the people went
+to church, and read their Bibles, and had family prayers, and kept holy
+the Sabbath day. Not a door among them all opened and held out a winning
+signal to arrest his heedless feet. Not so Satan! Is he ever caught
+idling at his post?
+
+Just around the corner from the respectable avenue (and around the
+corner Dirk presently turned, still uncertain what to do, where to find
+the warmth he craved) then the winning invitations for such as he began
+to present themselves. Saloons, and saloons, and saloons! How many of
+them were there? Far outnumbering the churches! Pleasant they looked,
+too; opening doors, ever and anon, revealing brightness and warmth
+within. They would like to see him inside. Of this Dirk was sure; not
+that he had money, but he had something that in such places often served
+him well,--a decided and dangerous talent for imitating any and every
+peculiarity of voice or manner that had chanced to come under his
+notice. He could make the fellows in these saloons roar with laughter.
+If he did particularly well, they were willing to order for him a glass
+of beer, or a fairly good cigar; in any case he had a chance to get
+warm. This was actually Dirk's only present source of income! Yet he
+shrank from it; he could not have told you why, but on this particular
+Sabbath he was averse to earning his coveted warmth in this way. He
+walked resolutely by two or three places where he had reason to think he
+might be welcomed, wondering vaguely whether there wasn't something
+else a fellow could do to keep himself from freezing. Oddly enough there
+seemed to be something about the glimmer of sunshine as he saw it in
+Mart's hair that kept him from halting before any of the places open to
+him. What if she had come out with him to take a walk; he could not
+have taken her into one of them! Then, poor fellow, he set himself to
+wondering where the place was, open and warmed, to which he could take
+Mart. There were places, several of them, in the large city; but Dirk
+knew nothing about them, and he was acquainted with the saloons. He
+thought of another thing; he had been invited to call at a house on East
+Fifty-fifth Street. Suppose he should walk up there this very afternoon
+and ring the bell, and say that he had come to call! What would happen
+then? Whereupon he laughed aloud. The fancy seemed to him so utterly
+preposterous. The idea of _his_ making a call! The utter improbability
+of his ever seeing the inside of one of the East Fifty-fifth Street
+mansions!
+
+Still remained that hopeless question: What should he do with himself?
+The sun was quite gone now, and a cold wind was blowing up freshly
+from the north. It blew directly through Dirk's threadbare garments. He
+turned suddenly and slipped inside one of the worst of the many saloons
+which literally lined this end of the street. He had refused to go with
+the boys to Poke's, an hour or two before, and this was several grades
+below Poke's in decency! But it was growing dark, and he was cold.
+
+There was one young man who saw him dash down those cellar stairs,
+who stood still and looked at him, his face darkening the while with
+discouragement. This, then, was all the afternoon's Sabbath-school had
+accomplished for him. To be sure he was not disappointed at the result;
+it was no more than he had expected; but it was so discouraging to be an
+eye-witness to the degradation to which these young wretches had fallen!
+Of course the young man was Alfred Ried, and he went home, and
+was dreary, over all sorts of failures in Christian work, mission
+Sabbath-schools especially; and their own, more especially than any
+other.
+
+Among the early shoppers on Monday morning came Mrs. Evan Roberts.
+Shopping, however, seemed to be a small part of her business. She came
+directly to young Ried's counter, and addressed him very much as though
+she had ceased talking with him but a moment before:--
+
+"Mr. Ried, what can you and I do for those boys during the week?"
+
+But Alfred was at his gloomiest.
+
+"I don't see that we can do anything for them at any time," he said,
+dismally. "What is an hour on Sunday, set against all the rest of the
+time? They go from the school-room to the rum saloons, and dawdle away
+the rest of the day. Yesterday I met that young Colson going into one
+of the worst saloons on Dey Street. They are not to blame, either." This
+last in a fiercer tone, after a slight pause. "I don't blame them;
+they have nowhere else to go, and nothing to do; and it is cold on the
+streets, and warm in the saloons."
+
+If he expected the small lady, who was regarding him so steadily, to
+take the other side of this question, he was disappointed. She spoke
+quietly enough, but with the earnestness of conviction.
+
+"Those are startling facts. I do not see how one could be surprised that
+the results are they are; and the practical question forces itself upon
+us, What are we to do under the circumstances? Mr. Ried, you have had
+your eyes open in regard to this subject for some time; what have you
+thought out?"
+
+Now was Mr. Alfred Ried embarrassed. It was true that his eyes had been
+long open to the subject; it was true that he had given it a great deal
+of what he had called thought. But with those alert eyes fixed on his
+face, her whole manner indicating intense earnestness, he suddenly
+realized that all his thought had been to no purpose, had accomplished
+nothing, unless it had served to give him a feeling almost of irritation
+against the boys, and their teachers who made failures, and the people
+who folded their hands and let things go to ruin. Here confronted him
+one, whose hands were not folded, though they rested quietly enough
+on the counter before him. He began to feel that there might be latent
+power in them.
+
+"I have nothing to say," and he said it at last with flushed face and
+embarrassed voice; "I have thought out nothing. The whole thing seemed
+hopeless to me with my utter lack of resources. My sister had schemes,
+many of them, and they seemed to me good ones, even then; they seem
+better now, only I cannot carry them out."
+
+She caught at the name.
+
+"Your sister? Ester Ried? Good! Let us carry them out, you and I, and as
+many more as we can get to help us. She is at work yet,--don't you see?
+What is that prophecy about her?--that voice which the prophet heard,
+you know, 'And I heard a voice saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the
+dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that
+they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.'"
+
+How strangely the words sounded, repeated in her low, clear voice, amid
+the hum of business on every side! Alfred Ried felt singularly moved.
+He had been a highly strung, imaginative child. He had been his sister
+Ester's almost constant companion during those last months in which
+she was slowly fading out of sight. While Julia held steadily to her
+mother's side, and learned to do many helpful things, he had been
+stationed chief nurse in Ester's room, to see that she lacked for no
+tender care during the hours when others must be away from her. And
+those hours she had tenderly improved. He remembered to this day just
+how she looked, with a pink flush all over her cheeks, and a bright
+light in her eyes, as she talked to him of the things that she and Dr.
+Douglass had meant to do for boys,--neglected, homeless, friendless
+boys. Oh, the plans they had carefully thought out, to reach after these
+forsaken ones! He remembered that his own cheeks had grown hot while he
+listened, and the blood had seemed to race like fire through his veins
+when she said, "God wants _me_ for something else, Alfred; but you will
+do my work when you get to be a man; you will find helpers, and carry
+it on as I wanted to do." He had made no audible answer, but he had told
+himself sturdily again and again that he certainly would. Yet here
+he was, barely of age, and almost soured by disappointments. Certain
+well-meant attempts having proved failures, and having not found
+the helpers whom he had eagerly expected, the magnitude of the work
+impressed itself upon him more remorselessly each hour. Yet now he
+seemed to feel again the thrill in his veins, and he felt almost under
+the power of his sister's eye while those words were in his ears:
+"They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." Might
+it possibly be that this was one of the "helpers" of whom Ester used to
+talk, sent by God himself to take up her planned work and follow it out?
+Yet she was so utterly unlike his memory of Ester! She had seemed to
+him a self-reliant, strong-toned woman; Mrs. Roberts was so small and
+frail-looking, and so fashionably dressed, and how those boys had acted
+with her only yesterday! What could she possibly do?
+
+Customers came just then, to change the current of his thoughts. They
+wanted round collars, and deep collars, and fichus, and edges, and a
+hundred little irritating things. Young Ried, usually so gracious
+and patient, had much ado to keep from showing his annoyance over the
+smallness of all their wishes.
+
+Meantime Mrs. Roberts, who had taken a seat, entered apparently with
+absorption into the relative merits of round or pointed collars with a
+young lady acquaintance. She patiently measured to discover whether the
+turned-down corner of one was a quarter of an inch deeper than the other
+or not; she gave, with due deliberation, her opinion as to whether the
+points were more becoming to the young lady's style of beauty than the
+rolling fronts, and even went to the trouble of unfastening her furs to
+show still another style that she liked better than either; sending
+the disgusted Alfred to an entirely different box in search of a like
+pattern. As he went, his lip curled visibly. What a fool he had been
+to allow himself to get momentarily excited over this doll! How
+preposterous in him to mention his dead sister's name to her! She had
+already forgotten the entire matter, and was deep in the merits of
+collars! His first estimate of her had been the correct one. Her
+mind was just about as deep, he believed, as the tiny collar she was
+measuring. What a farce it was to talk to her about helping those poor
+fellows! She probably thought a few soup tickets, and a chance for a
+good Christmas dinner at some of the public charity halls, was the way
+to reach and reform them. _He_ shouldn't help her; she mustn't expect
+it. Doubtless she did not. Probably she had by this time forgotten that
+she had suggested it. Why need she putter here about a few collars for a
+young lady in her own circle to wear with her morning dresses? That was
+just it, he told himself. It was because she _was_ in her circle, and
+because the collars were to be honored by being worn by such as she,
+that they became important, and the boys and their desperate needs sunk
+into insignificance. Well, he wished they would both go, and leave him
+to himself; give him a chance to rally from his momentary excitement, of
+which he was now ashamed.
+
+At last the collars were bought,--but not until the counter was strewn
+with different sorts; and the lady, with many bright little nothings
+for last words, moved off to another part of the store, and Mrs. Roberts
+whirled on her seat until her eyes were in full view again, and said:
+
+"What were some of her plans, Mr. Ried?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+"A CHRISTIAN HOME."
+
+
+"I don't suppose you can go into detail just now," she added, noting
+young Ried's hesitation and embarrassment; "but I was wondering if you
+could give me some general idea of what she wanted to do, or thought
+could be done."
+
+"There were a great many things that she wanted to do, and I believe she
+thought they could be done; but I don't think she knew the world very
+well," said this aged cynic. "She judged everybody from the standpoint
+of her own unselfishness. I remember she was not in sympathy with
+soup-houses, and dinner-tickets, and great public charities of that
+sort. Or, I don't know that I should say she was not in sympathy
+with them. I mean, rather, that those would not have been her ways of
+working. She was thinking of young people, and to give them a dinner
+now and then, she would not have considered a very great step toward
+elevating them morally and spiritually. Mrs. Roberts, it was just
+that which she wanted to do,--lift them up. She thought there could be
+invented ways of reaching them, so that they would want helping, want
+teaching,--_crave_ it, I mean; and she thought that Christian homes of
+wealth and culture could be opened to them, and they gradually toled
+in,--made to feel on a level with others, in the social scale; in
+short, she believed that instead of people going down to them in a
+condescending spirit, they could be drawn up to the level of others,
+so that they would realize their manhood, and be led to make earnest
+efforts to take their rightful places in the world. I know I am bungling
+dreadfully; I don't know how to tell you her plans, only that they were
+splendid. But I am afraid the world will have to be made over, before
+they can be carried out."
+
+"Perhaps so. Christ is at work making the world over, you know." The
+lady before him, whose eyes never for an instant moved from his face,
+spoke with exceeding sweetness and gravity. Neither by word nor glance
+did she give him to understand that she thought his schemes wild. "But I
+find that, after all, I want details. I catch a glimpse of the grandness
+of your sister's meaning. What were some of the steps,--the little
+steps, such as you and I could take, toward accomplishing? Yet, even
+while I ask the question, I see something of what the answer must be.
+'Christian homes opening to receive them!' That is a new thought to me,
+and in the plural number I do not see how just now, it could be done,
+but _one_ Christian home,--I ought to be able to manage that. Mr. Ried,
+that is the way to begin it, you may depend. Indeed, I suppose you have
+tried it? The city is full of boys, and many of them are away down.
+Since we cannot reach all of them this week, we must try to reach seven;
+and failing in that, suppose we say one? For which one have you been
+working? Just who, at this moment, specially interests you? I hope it
+is one of my boys, because, you see, they appeal to me, just now, as
+no others can. Which is it, Mr. Ried? and what have you tried to do for
+him? and to what extent have you succeeded?"
+
+There were never any hotter cheeks than young Ried's just at that
+moment. This was the most extraordinary person with whom he had ever
+talked. It was impossible to generalize with her. Not that he wanted to
+generalize; on the contrary, he at once saw the possibilities growing
+out of individual effort, and caught at the idea of undertaking
+something. But the question was, Why had he not thought of it before?
+One person to reach after, and try for!--surely, he might have attempted
+it, instead of trying to carry the hundreds that he stumbled against,
+and so accomplish nothing for any of them. It was humiliating, the
+confession that he had to make:--
+
+"Indeed, Mrs. Roberts, I have not one in mind. If you asked me what one
+hundred I was most anxious about, I might possibly be able to answer;
+but I see that there has been no individuality about it, unless,
+perhaps, the half-dozen or more boys who compose that class are taking
+a little stronger hold on me than any of the others; but even for them
+I have tried to do nothing, unless two or three attempts to secure a
+permanent teacher for them--which have ended in failure--may count for
+effort. I don't blame myself as much as I might, because, now that you
+suggest personal work to me, I realize that there is nothing for one
+situated as I am to do. I have no Christian home at my command."
+
+"Ah, but we are to come down to very small numbers, you know,--to
+fractions, if need be. You have a piece of Christian home at command, I
+trust?"
+
+But he looked at her inquiringly, and she explained:--
+
+"Why, you have the privacy of your own room, which is, of course, your
+corner of home just now, and it is a Christian corner. Is there not room
+in it sometimes for two?"
+
+He smiled faintly over that.
+
+"Mrs. Roberts, there is one thing with which you evidently are not
+familiar, and that is the corner which a poor clerk in the city has
+to call home. Mine is the fourth story back of a fourth-rate
+boarding-house, where the thermometer drops often below the
+freezing-point, and this place I share with as uncongenial a fellow as
+ever breathed. What would you think of labelling such accommodations
+'home?' and what can I do in it for others?"
+
+"Not much, perhaps," smiling, "unless for the uncongenial fellow. I
+should think there might be a chance in this direction."
+
+"Ah, but," he said, eagerly, "he is a Christian. My sympathies do not
+need to be drawn out in that direction."
+
+The smile was a peculiar one now, but the tone was very quiet in which
+the little lady said that some time, when they had leisure to talk, she
+should like to ask him whether his experience with Christians had been
+so exceptionally bright that he thought there was no work to do in that
+direction.
+
+"But just now," she added, earnestly, "I want to know, since you are
+shut away from home effort, for which of these boys you are praying
+especially, and which of them do you carry about on your heart, with the
+hope of a chance meeting, an unexpected, opportunity to speak a word,
+or do a kindness, or look a kindness that shall give you possible
+future influence? Don't you have to work in those ways? Two people
+never equally interest me at the same moment. I find I must be intensely
+individual, not to the exclusion of others, but in praying. For
+instance, yesterday I prayed, and this morning I prayed, for my entire
+class, but there was one all the time who was uppermost. I find myself
+questioning, What can I do for them all, but especially for him? Do you
+know, I fancy that most Christians feel the same; individual effort
+is so necessary that I have thought perhaps the Holy Spirit turns our
+thoughts most directly toward one person at a time, so that we may
+concentrate our efforts. Do you think this is so?"
+
+Young Ried did not answer promptly; he had no answer ready that suited
+him. His strongest feeling just then was one of self-reproach, mingled
+with humiliation. How had he looked down on this fair and beautiful
+little woman,--her very beauty being, he had fancied, an element against
+her when it came to actual effort. How had he allowed himself to sneer
+over her attempts at teaching that class of boys! How actually irritable
+he had been over it! How almost angrily he had questioned why it was
+that a teacher was not found for them fitted to their needs; when he had
+prayed about it so much; determined not to believe that the prayer had
+been answered, and the teacher found; yet here she was, the one whose
+efforts he had despised, talking already about individual prayer for
+them, while he, who had done a great amount of fretting for them, had
+not once presented them as individuals to Christ, and asked a definite
+blessing for each! His answer, when it came, was low and full of
+feeling:--
+
+"I have concentrated my desires in praying for the coming of such a
+teacher as might get hold of them; and I begin to think that I have an
+answer to my prayers."
+
+But she was absolutely proof against compliments. She wasted not a
+moment's thought on that, but said:--
+
+"Mr. Ried, who are they? I tried to get their names yesterday, but soon
+saw that they were not in the mood to help me. I don't think I have one
+correct name. Can you give me a list?"
+
+No, he could not--which admission did not lessen the glow on his cheek.
+Possibly he could mention the names of two, and guess at a third, but of
+the others he knew nothing.
+
+"To whom, then, can I go? Mr. Durant would know, of course. Where shall
+I find him?"
+
+So much Alfred knew. Mr. Durant was to be found at the Fourth National
+Bank; but, as for giving information in regard to that class, he was
+sure it was beyond him. He (Alfred) had asked only last Sabbath who the
+boy was who behaved so wretchedly, and also who was the fellow next him,
+but Mr. Durant had not known.
+
+Well, then, Mrs. Roberts said, nothing daunted, not even a shadow
+appearing on her quiet face, she must just study it out with his help.
+
+"There is immediate work for you," she said, "for of course I want
+to know their names. Who are the two? This Dirk Colson, whom you
+mentioned,--which was he?"
+
+Alfred described him as well as his bewilderment would allow, and was
+interrupted--
+
+"Oh, the small dark one. I know,--he interested me. Where does he live?"
+
+But to this question no clear answer could be given. Down in one of the
+alleys towards the South End; but just which alley, or how far down it,
+Alfred did not know. He knew it was a disreputable alley, and that there
+wasn't a decent home anywhere about it, and that was all.
+
+"What does Dirk do for a living?"
+
+This question was quite as difficult to answer as the other. Nothing,
+young Ried believed; at least nothing regular; odd jobs he doubtless
+picked up occasionally, but as for regular employment, Alfred was sure
+he had none.
+
+"Is that his fault? I mean, doesn't he desire work, and make an effort
+to secure it?"
+
+But this young Ried could not even pretend to answer. Work, for such as
+he, was scarce; boys with better habits, brought up to be industrious,
+were at this present time out of work. Possibly the fellow was not to
+blame for being an idler.
+
+Many other questions were asked, and many attempts were made at answers;
+but when the shoppers began to press in, to such a degree that their
+conversation was broken, and the energetic seeker after information felt
+herself obliged to retire, one thing had been accomplished: Alfred Ried
+had been made to realize that he knew much less than he had supposed he
+did about the seven boys who had seemed to be filling his thoughts for
+several weeks; and also, in his eager, passionate desire that everything
+should be done for all of them, he had overlooked the chances for doing
+here and there some little thing for one of them.
+
+"Good morning," Mrs. Roberts had said, turning cordially to a
+fashionably-dressed lady. "Collars? Oh, yes, this is the counter for
+them to be found in endless variety. They have a new pattern that I have
+been admiring. Mr. Ried, please show Mrs. Emory the curtain collars,
+with embroidered points."
+
+Which thing Mr. Ried proceeded to do with alacrity and respect, no trace
+of the earlier contemptuous feeling shadowing his face. Here was a woman
+who knew stylish collars when she saw them, and who also knew several
+other things, and had taught him a lesson this very morning that he
+would not be likely to forget.
+
+But Mrs. Roberts, as she made her way out from the fast-filling store,
+felt that she had not made great progress toward getting acquainted with
+her class.
+
+Still it must be admitted that if young Ried had gotten some new ideas,
+so also had she. "A Christian home!" She found herself repeating the
+phrase, lingering over it, wondering if her new home, in every sense of
+the word, merited that title. "It cannot simply mean a home where Christ
+is honored," she said to herself. "I surely have that. It rather means
+a home where everything pertaining to it serves His cause. The very
+furniture and the light and the brightness are made to do duty for Him,
+else they have no place there; and I, labelled Christian, have no right
+to them. Can they bear the test, I wonder? What is there that I can do
+with all the beauties of my parlors? There are things that I have not
+done. I can see some to do; but how can my Christian home serve these
+boys? When I get them into it, of course it will work for me; but how to
+get them in! Who are they? I wonder what spring I can touch to give me
+even this meagre bit of information?"
+
+As if in answer to her mental query, she came just then full upon
+Policeman Duffer. She recognized him instantly: a man who, though by
+no means small, was so far from having the majestic presence of most
+policemen that, in the estimation of the boys, he merited the name
+"Little Duffer." Mrs. Roberts carried to her new work one talent
+not always to be found among even efficient workers,--the ability to
+remember both names and faces. Especially did a name seem, without any
+effort on her part, to fasten itself upon her memory; and not only that,
+but it brought with it a train of memories enabling her to locate
+when and where, and under what circumstances, she heard the name; and,
+therefore, generally whom the name fitted. Recognizing the features of
+the policeman whom she had seen at the door of the South End Mission,
+she connected him at once with the term "Little Duffer," heard in her
+class, and addressed him:--
+
+"Mr. Duffer, I believe."
+
+It is safe to say that Policeman Duffer, entirely accustomed as he was
+to hearing himself addressed officially a hundred or a thousand times a
+day, was yet utterly unaccustomed to the prefix of "Mr.", and started in
+surprise.
+
+"Are you not the gentleman whom I saw at the South End last Sabbath?"
+
+The policeman admitted that he probably was. He was detailed for duty
+there. Then she plunged at once into business. Did he know the boys who
+attended that school? Some of them he did, better than he wanted to; and
+a precious set they were, in Policeman Duffer's opinion.
+
+"Might as well go out to the Zoo," he declared, "and get a set of
+animals and try to tame 'em."
+
+Mrs. Roberts was not in the mood to argue; she was bent on information.
+Did he know, she wondered, the boys who composed her class? She had just
+taken the class, and was so unfortunate as not to be acquainted
+with their names. One was Dirk Colson, and another she had heard was
+Haskell--Timothy Haskell, perhaps, though of that she was not certain.
+Did that give Mr. Duffer any clue?
+
+"Plenty of clue," he said, shaking his head. "So you've taken that
+class, ma'am?"--a curious mixture of amazement and credulity in his
+voice. "What possessed you, if I may be so bold? They're a hard lot,
+ma'am. I know them, as I said, altogether too well. I've had enough to
+do with some of them; and I expect more work from them. They gain in
+wickedness in a most surprising way. Their names, yes; there's Scrawley
+and Sneaking Billy, and Black Dirk,--him you know."
+
+Mrs. Roberts interrupted him. She begged his pardon, but could those
+really be the boys names? Were they not rather some unfortunate street
+names that had been fastened upon them?
+
+Thus brought back to his senses, Policeman Duffer laughed, and admitted
+that he supposed Sneaking Billy was properly named Sneyder; but he was
+once caught in a mean trick, from which he tried in so many ways to
+squirm out, that the boys had themselves named him Sneaking Billy, and
+the name had stuck.
+
+As for "Scrawley," his real name was Stephen Crowley. How it became
+contracted into "Scrawley" the boys could tell better than anybody else.
+They always called him that, and so did other people; and Policeman
+Duffer was inclined to doubt whether the fellow remembered that he had
+any other name.
+
+"You can see yourself, ma'am," he added, "how Black Dirk came by his
+name. He is the blackest white fellow as ever I saw, and I've seen
+crowds of 'em."
+
+The streets were full, and Policeman Duffer was being interviewed by
+a great many people in regard to all the questions that policemen are
+expected to answer. But by dint of patient waiting, one foot poised on
+a curbstone to keep it out of the mud, making hurried little memoranda
+while Policeman Duffer was engaged, and earnestly plying her questions
+when he was at leisure, Mrs. Roberts learned the names of her seven
+boys, and where several of them lived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+"SATAN, HE HAS 'EM ALL THE WEEK."
+
+
+"That Black Dirk is a case," said Policeman Duffer, turning hastily away
+from an unusually stupid man, who could not be made to understand where
+a certain street was. "He is the worst of the lot, _I_ believe.
+Jerry Tompkins is slyer, and Dick Bolton is quicker than lightning at
+mischief; Nimble Dick they call him; he's a sort of ringleader; what he
+does the rest are apt to; but, to my thinking, Dirk is ahead of them all
+for evil. The rest are kind of jolly; fun seems to be about half that
+they are after; but Dirk, he's sullen; you never know how to take him,
+nor when he may burst out on you. He's dangerous. I am always looking
+out for something awful that he will do."
+
+Poor Dirk! Yet he was the boy to whom Mrs. Roberts' desires had gone
+out the most anxiously. It was over his image that she had lingered
+that morning in her closet. Policeman Duffer would have been greatly
+astonished had he known there was that in his words which gave her
+courage. "Perhaps," she said to herself, with quickening breath, "oh,
+perhaps the poor boy is the most in danger of them all, and the Saviour,
+knowing it, sees ways in which I may reach him, and so presses his poor,
+sullen face on my memory."
+
+"What does he do for a living?" she hastened to ask.
+
+"Well, to the best of my knowledge, he loafs for a living. That's all
+I've ever known him guilty of doing. He's got a drunken father,--one
+of the meanest kind of drunkards. If he would go and stay drunk all
+the time and leave them alone they might manage; but he has spells
+of getting half over it, and coming home and tearing around like all
+possessed. Then they have times! I've been in there when it took all my
+strength to manage him. If he would get killed in one of his rows I'd
+have some hope of the rest of 'em; but he won't. That kind of folks
+never do get killed; it's the decent ones. A fellow was carried by here
+just with a broken leg,--a nice, decent boy; works hard to help his
+sister. He's the sort now that gets his leg broken and gets laid up for
+the rest of the winter. How do you account for that? He lives pretty
+near Black Dirk's. Of course, he's got a drunken father; they all have
+in that row; but if I was going in for benevolence I'd twice as soon do
+something for young Calkins as for any of your set; they're a bad lot.
+They aren't worth lifting a finger for. Now, that's a fact."
+
+"And yet," said Mrs. Roberts, her voice tremulous with a feeling that
+just then surged over her, "how can I help remembering that if the Lord
+Jesus had said that of us, and stayed up there in his glory, we should
+have been utterly without help or hope to-day?"
+
+Very much astonished was Policeman Duffer. Ladies on all sorts of
+errands had consulted him. He had been presented with many tracts in
+his day; but rarely had a clear-voiced, earnest-eyed woman quietly
+confronted him with that name, as if it contained an unanswerable
+argument. However, he was not embarrassed; it took a great deal to
+embarrass him.
+
+"I don't take much stock in him," he said, with a lofty toss of his
+head, and a careless tone, as though the question were one easy to
+dispose of. "I don't believe in him myself."
+
+"Do you know him?"
+
+Earnest eyes, raised to his face, fixed steadily on his face, while the
+questioner waited quietly for an answer.
+
+Policeman Duffer was embarrassed now; he was not used to being
+confronted with such matter-of-fact questions.
+
+"Do I know him?" with a confused little laugh. "Why, I reckon not,
+ma'am; according to the popular notion he is too far away for folks to
+be well acquainted."
+
+"Then popular notion is mistaken, for I know him very well indeed; and
+he is by no means far away. But what I meant was, Have you studied
+his life and character, and do you fully understand the arguments for
+believing in him?"
+
+"I study the folks who profess to belong to him, ma'am, and I find that
+about as much as I can stand."
+
+This was said with a saucy little laugh, and with the air of a man who
+believed he had produced an unanswerable argument. The steady eyes did
+not move from his face, and the voice which answered him had lost none
+of its quietness:--
+
+"But do you think it is wise to spend your time in studying the
+imperfect copies, without looking at the perfect pattern? You would not
+take the child's careless imitation as a proof that his teacher could
+not write. I thank you for helping me to-day. I wish you would help my
+boys when you can; and I wish you would study my Master instead of me.
+Good morning."
+
+"That's a queer party!" did Policeman Duffer exclaim, as he watched her
+far down the street. "I'm blessed if I wouldn't like to know who she is;
+she ain't like the rest, somehow. _Her_ boys! Much she knows about 'em!
+Her _bears_ she might as well call 'em! What does she think she can do
+with that set in her little hour, Sunday afternoon? Satan, he has 'em
+all the week, and looks after 'em sharp; and then these Christians come
+in of a Sunday, and mince a little, and think they can upset his doings
+by it. Shows their sense! But she's a curious little party; sharp,
+without knowing it. I'm blessed if I don't keep an eye on her, and save
+her from scrapes, if I can."
+
+Meantime, all unconscious of his good intentions, Mrs. Roberts pursued
+her way down the thronged avenue, and presently turned from it entirely,
+and moved down one of the side-streets with resolute steps. A daring
+thought had come into her mind; she would try to find the alley where
+one at least of her boys lived. It couldn't be worse than some of
+the alleys at home which she had penetrated. She felt certain that
+by following the policeman's directions she could find the place, and
+possibly be able to minister to the boy with a broken limb. At all
+events, it was necessary for her to know how her boys lived, and
+where they lived, if she were to reach them. But there are alleys, and
+_alleys_, as the venturesome lady found to her cost. This one into
+which she was plunging excelled anything in that line which she had ever
+imagined,--swarming with life in its most repulsive forms, and growing
+every moment more terrifying to a well-dressed woman braving its horrors
+alone.
+
+She stopped in dismay at last, admitting, reluctantly, that the
+wisest thing she could do was to turn around and go home. Possibly the
+_wisest_, but not, it appeared, practicable. Where _was_ home? Down
+which of the cross-streets had she come? Did this one where she stood
+lead to it, or did it lead, as it appeared to her, in an entirely
+opposite direction? She looked up and down and across for some familiar
+landmark, and looked in vain, growing momentarily more frightened at
+the attention she was attracting by standing irresolutely there. Flossy
+Shipley, in her girlhood days, had been almost a hopeless coward; and
+Flossy Roberts felt, by the throbbing of her heart, that she had not yet
+outgrown her girlish character. Suddenly she gave a little exclamation
+of delight, and with a spring forward laid her hand on the arm of one
+whom she recognized, none other than "Nimble Dick" himself.
+
+"I am so glad," she said to the amazed young scamp, a little quiver of
+satisfaction in her voice, "so glad to have met you. Do you know you are
+a friend in need? I have lost my way. I cannot decide which way to turn
+to reach Fifth Avenue again. Will you help me, please?"
+
+When had Nimble Dick lost an opportunity for fun at the expense of
+another? Here was a chance for a jolly lark! A woman scared to death
+because she was on Green alley. What would she think of Burk Street!
+Suppose he should send her there? Only three blocks away, through a
+lovelier part of the city than she had seen yet, he would venture!
+If the crowds here showed her too much attention, it would be worth
+something to see how she got through Burk Street.
+
+"Oh, yes," he said, briskly, "I can show you the way in a twinkling. You
+just go down this alley till you come to the big house on the corner,
+that has the windows all knocked out of it; then you turn and go down
+that street till you get to the third crossing; then turn again to the
+right, and you'll be on Fifth Avenue before you know it."
+
+Had Mrs. Roberts been looking at his face, she would have seen the
+wicked light dancing in his eyes over the thought that he had thus
+mapped out for her a walk through the very worst portion of the city,
+every step, of course, leading her further and further away from Fifth
+Avenue. The sights that she might see, and the mishaps which might occur
+to her,--a handsomely-dressed woman alone,--before she made her way
+through the horrors of these streets were too much even for Nimble
+Dick's imagination, who knew the locality well. He did not try to
+calculate them, but gave himself up to the enjoyment of imagining
+how long it would be before she would reach home if she followed his
+directions. "She won't see no swallowing serpents that I knows of," he
+reflected, gleefully; "but I'll miss my reckoning if she don't see what
+will scare her worse than they would."
+
+But Mrs. Roberts was already "scared." She felt her heart beating hard,
+and knew that her cheeks were aglow with excitement and vague terror.
+She was not used to walking such streets alone. She looked ahead at the
+way pointed out, and could see that the swarming life grew more turbid
+as far as her eye could reach. She felt that she could not brave its
+terrors unprotected. Suddenly she turned from looking down the alley,
+and her hand, a small, delicately-gloved hand, was again laid on Nimble
+Dick's arm; he could feel it trembling.
+
+"I suppose I shall seem very foolish to you," she said, gently; "but I
+am afraid to walk down there alone. Would you mind going along with
+me to protect me? I am only a woman, you know, and we are apt to be
+cowards."
+
+A very curious sensation came over Nimble Dick. He looked up the alley,
+and down the alley, and was glad that not one of the "fellows" was in
+sight. What was to become of his lark? But there was that hand still
+resting on his arm, with a persuasive touch in it; and he had never been
+appealed to for protection before,--never in his life! Was it possible
+that with _him_ she would not be afraid? He turned and looked at her,
+searchingly, a scowl on his face,--no, she was not "shamming;" her eyes
+were full of anxious fear, and also of petition. Nimble Dick was amazed
+at himself and ashamed of himself; he did not know how to account for
+his sudden change of intention. But he suddenly turned in an opposite
+direction from the one which he had pointed out, and said, "Come on,
+then; I'll show you a shorter way," and strode forward.
+
+"Oh, thank you!" she said, relief and gratitude in her voice. "I shall
+be so much obliged to you for coming with me; I am quite bewildered;
+cannot decide which way I came, or anything about it. I was trying to
+find the house of a young man who has been hurt. A policeman told
+me that he lived on this street, and that his name is Calkins. I was
+thinking about him, and walked on without noticing, until I did not know
+where I was. Do you know anything of the young man?"
+
+"You are too far down for him," said Nimble Dick. "He's quality, and
+lives at the upper end of the alley. That's his house, away up there.
+He's hurt bad, they say; but I s'pose he'll get well. He's got a quality
+doctor,--a regular swell, who never come into these alleys before. He
+was going along when they brought Mark home, and he followed them in,
+and he come there again last night and this morning. I dunno what for,
+I'm sure. Mark Calkins can't pay no doctor's bills, if he does work
+regular, and pay more rent than the rest of folks."
+
+There was a curious mixture of complaint and satisfaction in Dick's
+tone. Mrs. Roberts gathered from it that the young man, Mark Calkins, in
+whom the policeman had tried to interest her, was superior to the rest
+of the miserable people in the alley, and that they resented it as an
+insult to themselves; but that, at the same time, the reflected honor
+of having a "swell" doctor come into their midst, attendant upon one who
+really belonged to their class, was very great. Could she possibly get
+a little influence over them by following up the injured young man,
+and giving what help was needful? She had hardly meant to call, though
+trying to find the house. Her method of reasoning had been something
+like this: "The policeman said he lived about two blocks from my poor
+Dirk's home. Since there has so recently been an accident, there may
+be something to mark the house,--a doctor passing in, possibly, or
+something that shall give me a landmark, and I can have a glimpse of the
+outside of one of the homes." In her ignorance of life at that end of
+the social scale she did not know that a doctor passing in and out, even
+after an accident, was a sufficiently rare occurrence to make much more
+of a mark than she was looking for. So absorbed had she been over the
+boys belonging to her class that she had rather ignored the policeman's
+manifest hint to add this one to her list. Yet, was it possibly an
+answer to her prayer, an entering-wedge of some sort, that might open
+the way to influence?
+
+"Who is the doctor?" she asked her guide, as the possibility of making
+an entrance through him occurred to her. "Do you know his name?"
+
+Oh yes, Dick knew his name and where he lived, and even the names of
+some of his "swell" patients;--trust him for gaining information about
+anything that came into the alley.
+
+"It's Dr. Everett," he said promptly, that curious touch of
+pride appearing again in his voice. "He lives away up among the
+Twenty-thirders, and he goes to Cady's house to doctor, and lots of them
+places where the big ones lives. I dunno how he happens to come here."
+
+Mrs. Roberts had never heard the name, but she reflected that she was a
+new-comer, and wisely desisted from taking from the glory of Dr. Everett
+by admitting that he was not known to all the world. He might be a good
+doctor and a philanthropic one; his visits to this region looked like
+it.
+
+"Do you know where any of the boys in our class live?"
+
+This was her next carefully-worded question. She did not know whether to
+hint that she had heard of one who lived in that alley, or whether this
+would be considered an insult.
+
+"Well," said Nimble Dick, the sly twinkle coming back to his eyes
+that the strangeness of the situation had driven away for a moment, "I
+calculate that I know where I live _myself_; sometimes I do, anyhow."
+
+"To be sure!" she said, laughing at his humor. "I should have said,
+where any of the others live. Of course you will give me your address,
+after being so kind as to see me to--some point where I am acquainted."
+
+She had nearly said a place of safety, but checked herself in time. I
+am not sure, though, that Dick would have noticed it; he was lost in
+astonishment over the idea of giving anybody his address!
+
+"This is Dirk Colson's house," he said, suddenly, "and he is one of our
+fellows."
+
+Mrs. Roberts uttered an exclamation. The house was one of the most
+forlorn in the row, seeming, if the miserable state of the buildings
+would admit of comparison, to be more out of repair than the others. It
+came home to her just then, with a sudden, desolating force, that human
+beings, such as she was trying to reach, and such as she hoped would
+live in heaven forever, called such earthly habitations as these homes.
+What possible idea could they ever get of heaven by calling it "home"?
+
+"Do they have the whole of the house?"
+
+She asked the question timidly, for the building looked very large, but
+she was utterly unused to city tenement life.
+
+"The _whole_ of that house?" Dick fairly shouted the sentence, and bent
+himself double with laughter. "Well, I should say not, mum! As near as I
+can calculate, about thirty-five different families have that pleasure.
+The whole of the house! Oh, my! What a greeny!" And he laughed again.
+
+Mrs. Roberts exerted herself to laugh with him, albeit she was
+horror-stricken. Thirty-five families in one house! How could they be
+other than awful in their ways of living?
+
+"I know almost nothing about great cities," she said; "my home was in a
+much smaller one."
+
+This was the truth, but not the whole truth. Instinct kept this
+veritable lady, in the truest sense of the word, from explaining that
+she knew nothing about the abject poor, when she was speaking to one of
+their number. Just at this moment occurred a diversion; they had been
+making swift progress through the alley, Dick's long strides requiring
+effort on his companion's part to keep by his side, but just ahead the
+way was obstructed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+"WHAT A LITTLE SCHEMER IT IS."
+
+
+A riot! Not among men, which is sufficiently terrifying; nor yet among
+women, which is worse; but that most awful of all sights and sounds
+of sin,--a riot among the children. Swearing, spitting at one another,
+tearing one another's hair, scratching like tigers, growling like wild
+beasts, throwing garbage at one another! This was the sort of crowd upon
+which Mrs. Roberts, in her black silk walking-suit, with her velvet hat
+and seal furs, presently came. She grasped at Dick's arm in horror, but
+a feeling that was more than terror was taking her strength away.
+
+"Oh!" she said, and the agony in her voice really suggested more than
+terror to the young fellow beside her. "And they are little children!
+They cannot be more than seven or eight! Oh, what can I do?"
+
+"You needn't be scared, mum!" There was a little hint of something like
+pity in Dick's voice. She clung to him so that he could not help feeling
+himself her protector. "It ain't an uncommon row at all; they mostly act
+like this; most likely one of 'em's found a bone and t' other one wants
+it, and then they're gone in for a row, and all the young ones crowd
+around and fight, on one side or t' other."
+
+Did this fearful explanation make the situation less terrible?
+
+There was a lull, however, in the quarrel. The elegantly-dressed lady
+was seen approaching,--an unusual sight in that alley,--and both parties
+paused to get a view. Paused in their attentions to each other, that is;
+but at Mrs. Roberts they hooted and jeered, and one threw a handful of
+mud.
+
+Then did Nimble Dick rise to his position as protector.
+
+"Shut up, there! Stand aside, Pluck, and let us pass! Look out there,
+you Smirchy! Don't you throw that over here unless you want your head
+broke for you when I get back!"
+
+This threat was thrown at a wretched little girl, who had dived her hand
+deeply into a box or cask of garbage, and brought it forth reeking with
+rotten apples, pork fat, and any liquid horror which the name suggests
+to you. She had her hand uplifted ready to throw, and was evidently
+intending to give the strange lady the benefit of what she had prepared
+for one of the rioters.
+
+The assured tone in which Nimble Dick spoke had its effect; the
+combatants were all small, and he was large, and was evidently
+recognized as a power. There were some defiant glances thrown at him,
+but the motley crowd gave way, and allowed him to pass uninjured. Still
+he kept an alert watch of them until quite out of reach, and was not
+sparing of his admonitions.
+
+"Hold on there, Bill,--I see that! Look out, Sally! You'll be sorry if
+you throw anything,--mind you that!"
+
+And at last they were through the crowd. Not out of danger, it seemed;
+for there, directly in their narrow path, was a drunken man, swaying
+from side to side in the way which is so terrible to one unused to such
+sights. Dick felt the hold on his arm tighten, and was astonished at the
+sound of his own voice as he said, soothingly:--
+
+"You needn't be scared at him, mum; that's only old Jock; he's as ugly
+as old Nick himself, but he knows better than to be very ugly to me. I
+can throw him in the gutter as easy as I could them young ones, and he
+knows it. That's Dirk's father, that is! Ain't he a beauty?"
+
+And again Mrs. Roberts uttered an exclamation of dismay, and part of her
+terror went out in sorrow over the wrongs of a boy who had such a home
+and such a father. What ought to be expected of him?
+
+That interminable alley was conquered at last, and they emerged into
+respectability on the broad avenue. Mrs. Roberts released her hold of
+her protector's arm, and his new character vanished on the instant.
+
+"You're here, mum," he said, with a saucy twinkle in his eye and a saucy
+leer on his face. "Can you get yourself home from this spot, or shall I
+borrow a wheelbarrow and tote you there?"
+
+Much shaken with various emotions though she was, Mrs. Roberts forced
+herself to laugh. She would not frown on his fun when it was not
+positively sinful; he might not be aware that it was disrespectful; he
+might never have heard the word.
+
+"I know the way now, thank you; at least I think I do. Can you tell me
+whether I take a green car or a yellow one to get to East Fifty-fifth
+Street?"
+
+"You take a green one," he said, quietly, his character of protector
+having returned to him with the question, which still showed her
+dependence on him.
+
+"Thank you," she said again, with great heartiness. "I shall never
+forget your care of me." Her hand was in her pocket, and a bright coin
+was between her fingers. She longed to give it to Nimble Dick; he had
+saved her from so much this morning. And he was so miserably clad,
+surely he needed help. A moment's reflection, and she resolutely
+withdrew her hand. He should be paid by a simple hearty, "Thank you!"
+this morning, for kindness rendered. He might not consider it a current
+coin, but possibly it would be his first lesson in the courtesies of
+life.
+
+Later in the day, when Mrs. Roberts was somewhat rested from her
+morning's campaign, young Ried received a little note:--
+
+Dear Mr. Ried,--I know the names of all the boys, and inclose you a
+list. It is possible that you may fall in with some one during the day
+who can impart knowledge concerning them. Anyway, I thought you would
+like to know their names. Keep me posted, please, as to your success in
+making their acquaintance. We are allies, remember.
+
+Yours for the Master,
+
+Mrs. E.L. Roberts.
+
+Alfred Ried twisted the delicate note-paper thoughtfully in his hand,
+a look of perplexity on his face. He felt committed for labor; glad was
+he, very, yet perplexed. He did not in the least know where to commence.
+Well, neither had this little lady; yet she had accomplished more in her
+one day's acquaintance than he after a lapse of weeks. Either she had
+found opportunities, or had made them. There must be chances; he would
+be sure to keep his eyes open after this.
+
+In the handsome house on East Fifty-fifth Street, where Mr. Roberts had
+settled his bride, after a somewhat extended business tour, involving
+months of absence, matters were in train for a cosy evening in the
+library. That was the name of the beautiful room where the husband
+and wife sat down together; but it was quite unlike the conventional
+library. Books there were in lavish abundance, but there were also
+pictures and flowers and a singing-bird or two, and an utter absence of
+that severe attention to business details which characterizes most rooms
+so named. Little prettinesses, which Mr. Roberts smilingly admitted
+did not belong to a library, were yet established there, with an air of
+having come to stay. "We will call it the library for convenience,"
+the master of the house said, "and then we will put into it whatever
+we please. It shall be a conservatory, and a sewing-room and a
+lounging-room and anything else that you and I choose to make it."
+And Mrs. Roberts gleefully assented, and gave free rein to her pretty
+tastes. Flossy Shipley had been wont to be much trammelled with the ways
+in which "they" did everything; but Mrs. Evan Roberts was learning
+that, in unimportant matters at least, they had a right to be a law unto
+themselves. Perhaps it helped her, to be aware that a large class of
+people were all ready to quote "Mrs. Evan Roberts" as authority on
+almost any point of taste.
+
+On the evening in question Mr. Roberts, in dressing-gown and slippers,
+had drawn his lounging-chair to the drop-light, preparatory to a
+half-hour of reading aloud. But it transpired that there was something
+preparatory to that, or at least that must take the precedence. Certain
+business telegrams followed him home, which required the writing of two
+or three business letters.
+
+"It will not take me long," he explained to his wife, "and they are
+not complicated affairs, so I give you leave to talk right on while I
+dispatch them." She laughed at this hint about her fondness for talk,
+but presently made use of the privilege.
+
+"Evan, what sort of a young man do you consider Mr. Ried?"
+
+"Ried? Who? Oh, my clerk? The very best sort; a most estimable
+fellow,--one of a thousand. By the way, did you tell him how you became
+interested in that sister of his?"
+
+"Not yet; I want to get better acquainted. But, Evan, do you know where
+he boards?"
+
+"Hardly; on Third Avenue somewhere, I believe; or possibly Second. The
+store register would show. Do you want his address!"
+
+"Oh, I know _where_ it is; but I mean what sort of a place is it?"
+
+Mr. Roberts slightly elevated his shapely shoulders.
+
+"It is a boarding-house, where many clerks board; that tells a doleful
+story to the initiated, I suspect. Poor fare and dismal surroundings;
+still, it is eminently respectable."
+
+"Where does he spend his Sabbaths?"
+
+The rapidly-moving pen executed nearly two lines of handsome writing
+before Mr. Roberts was ready to respond to this question.
+
+"Why, at church, principally, I fancy. He is very regular in his
+attendance at morning service, and the South End Mission absorbs his
+afternoons. I suppose he goes to church in the evening; but since we
+have been giving our attention to that evening mission I have not seen
+him."
+
+"Ah, but, Evan, I mean the rest of the time; those little bits of
+Sabbath time that are sacred to home. The twilight, for instance, or
+for an hour in the morning. Do you know what sort of a place he has for
+those times?"
+
+Nearly three more lines added to the paper; then Mr. Roberts raised his
+head:--
+
+"No, my dear, I don't. Now that you bring me face to face with the
+question, it seems a surprising thing to say that I should not know
+where a young man who has been for more than a year in our employ spends
+his choice bits of time, but I don't."
+
+"Then I want to tell you something about it. He has a dingy,
+fourth-story back room; small, I fancy, from the way in which he spoke
+of it, and not a speck of fire over! In such weather as this, how can a
+young man read his Bible, or even pray, under such circumstances?"
+
+Mr. Roberts laid down his pen and sat erect, regarding his wife with a
+thoughtful, far-away air.
+
+"Flossy," he said at last, "it is an immense question! You open a
+perfect mine of anxiety and doubt. I have hovered around the edges for
+some time, but have generally contrived to shut my eyes and refuse to
+look into it, because I was afraid of what I might see; and because I
+did not know--what to do with my knowledge. I have not been the working
+member of the firm very long, you know, and my special field, until
+lately, has been the other side of the ocean; but I have been at home
+long enough to know that there are several hundred young men in our
+employ who are away from their homes; and knowing, as I do, the price of
+board in respectable houses, and knowing the salaries which the younger
+ones receive, it does not require a great deal of penetration to
+discover that they must have rather dreary homes here, to put it mildly.
+The fact is, Flossy, I haven't wanted to look into this thing very
+closely, because I do not see the remedy. Look at our house, for
+instance, with its three hundred clerks, we'll say, who are away
+from their friends; suppose one-half, or even one-third, of them are
+miserably situated, what can I do?"
+
+"Are they not sufficiently well paid to have the ordinary comforts of
+life?"
+
+"Doubtful. The truth is, what you and I call the ordinary comforts of
+life takes a good deal of money; and in the city, rents are high,
+and the boarding-house keepers have hard struggles to make their
+expenditures meet their income, and they carry economy to the very verge
+of meanness,--some of them fairly over the verge, I presume; and the
+result is cheap food, badly cooked,--because well-cooked food means
+high-priced help,--and cold rooms and dreariness and discomfort
+everywhere. Now what can be done about it? Then our house is only one of
+hundreds, and in many of these hundreds they employ more help and give
+less wages than we; in fact, I know that some of our clerks are looked
+upon with envy by a great many young men. We never have any trouble
+in supplying vacancies. People swarm around us, because we have the
+reputation of being liberal. We are not liberal, however; sometimes I am
+inclined to think we are hardly fair, yet there is nothing I can do.
+I am a junior partner, with a great deal of the responsibility, and a
+third of the voting power, and I can't get salaries raised. I've been
+working at that problem at intervals for a year, and have accomplished
+very little. Do you wonder that I keep my eyes as closely shut as I
+can?"
+
+His wife's face wore a thoughtful, not to say perplexed look; she seemed
+to have no answer ready; and, after waiting a moment for it, Mr. Roberts
+bent himself again to the task of getting his business letters
+answered. Before he had written one more line, her face had cleared. She
+interrupted him:--
+
+"Evan, when you talk about four hundred clerks, and multiply that by
+hundreds of houses and more hundreds of clerks, I cannot follow you
+at all. It is not that I am not impressed with the number,--I am,--it
+appalls me; but I don't want to be appalled; I want to be helpful.
+Perhaps just now there is nothing that I can do for the hundreds, so I
+want to narrow my thoughts down to what, possibly, I can do. What, for
+instance, can be done towards getting a good young man, like Alfred
+Ried, into a place that will be just a little bit like a home; that will
+give him a spot where he can study his Bible in comfort, and invite a
+friend with whom he wants to pray, or whom he wants to reach and help in
+any way? That isn't a huge problem. Can't it be solved?"
+
+Her husband smiled.
+
+"He is only one of thousands," he said.
+
+"Yes, I know; but he is _one_ of thousands. Since we cannot reach
+thousands, shall we fail to reach one? Evan, I am only one of thousands,
+but, but how would you argue about me?"
+
+Mr. Roberts laughed again.
+
+"You are one out of thousands and thousands!" he said, emphatically.
+
+A line more, and he signed the firm name with an unusually fine
+flourish.
+
+"There! I've accomplished one letter. What do you want to do, Flossy?"
+
+"I want Mr. Ried to have a room where he can invite one of my boys
+occasionally, and make him comfortable, and do for him what we cannot
+with our rooms; do for him what only a young man can do for a young man.
+I don't clearly know what I want further than that, but I see that one
+thing as a stepping-stone. Remember, I want all your thousands to have
+just as pleasant rooms, and I would like to help to bring it about, but
+I don't just now see the way."
+
+"Do you see the way to this?"
+
+"No, but doesn't it seem as though we ought to be able to accomplish so
+much?"
+
+"It does, certainly. What is your desire, Flossy? Do you want him to
+have a room in our house?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No, that would not further my plan for those boys. I would like to have
+him here, and it would be a good thing for him,--at least I think it
+would; but I can see things which he could accomplish for these young
+men, set by himself, in a different part of the city. Besides, Evan,
+I have other plans for our rooms, entirely different ones, and some of
+them I am afraid you will think are very strange."
+
+He answered the doubt with a smile that said he had no fears of her or
+her plans.
+
+"What a little schemer it is!" he said, looking down on her with fond,
+proud eyes. "Who would have imagined that she could plot, and plot so
+mysteriously? I used to think she was a very open-hearted woman."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+"WHAT WOULD YOU DO, DEAR?"
+
+
+She joined in his laugh albeit, there was a tender look in her eyes.
+After a moment, she said, gently:--
+
+"It is not scheming, Evan; I am only trying to set about the work for
+which I have been chosen. I'll tell you how it all came to me. I was
+reading--my morning reading, you know--after you had gone; taking little
+dips here and there in the fashion that you think is so unsystematic,
+and I came upon this verse: 'He is a chosen vessel unto me,' you know,
+about Paul? Well, it came to me with a sudden sense of awe and beauty,
+the being chosen of God to do a great work. I stopped reading to think
+it out; what a grand moment it must have been to Paul when he realized
+it. And I began to feel almost sorry that we lived in such different
+times, with no such opportunities! I stopped right in the midst of my
+folly to remember that I was as certainly chosen of God as ever Paul
+was; for assuredly I did not come to him of myself, nor begin to love
+him of myself, and therefore he must indeed have chosen me; and I
+wondered whether probably each Christian had not a work to do as
+definite as Paul's--a work that would be given to no other, unless
+indeed the chosen one failed. I did not want to fail, and I asked God
+not to let me. Then, of course, I set to wondering what my work, or my
+part of some other person's work, could be. It was the morning after you
+had told me that about Ester Ried. You cannot think how that impressed
+me. I could not get away from the wonderment as to how her work was
+prospering, and whether there were chosen ones enough, or if there
+might possibly be a little place for me. I couldn't settle anything, and
+finally I decided to look at Paul's work a little while. Of course, it
+was not reasonable to suppose that the duties of the great apostle had
+anything in common with my bits of effort; still, I said, the directions
+given him may help me a little. And Evan, what do you think was the
+first thing I found? Why, this: 'The God of our fathers hath chosen
+thee, that thou _shouldst know his will_.' Surely, so far, the things
+for which both he and I were chosen were parallel. I looked further:
+'And see that Just One.' That was the very next. Was not I, too, chosen
+for that? 'Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty.' I said over the
+beautiful promise to assure myself that it was true, and went on:
+'And shouldst hear the voice of his mouth.' Was it not strange, Evan?
+Certainly I shall hear my King speak, often and often, when I get home.
+Only think of it; so far Paul was not ahead of me. I hurried to find
+another reference to Paul's work, and I found this; let me read it to
+you." Her bit of dainty sewing was suddenly pushed one side, and up from
+the depths of the rose-lined work-basket came a small, plainly-bound
+Bible, much marked; a rapid turning of the leaves, and the eager
+disciple read: "I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee
+a minister and a witness, both of these things which thou hast seen, and
+of those things in the which I will appear unto thee. Now, Evan, you
+know the veriest child can be a witness if he knows anything about the
+facts; and I do certainly know some wonderful things about Jesus to
+which I could witness; and besides, isn't it reasonable to suppose that
+he will appear to me every day with things for me to witness to? And
+then I read this; Paul sent to the Gentiles, you know, but for what: 'To
+open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the
+power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and
+inheritance among them which are sanctified, by faith that is in me.'
+Evan, was there ever a more wonderful work to do in the world than that?
+And yet I cannot tell you how it made me feel to discover, or at least
+to realize, that a great deal of it was my work! Of course, I naturally
+began to ask myself, what Gentile was there for me to reach? Whose eyes
+must I try to open? Do you know, that very afternoon I met Mr. Ried, and
+heard of those boys? They interested me from the first, and what he told
+me about his sister increased the interest. Then when I saw them!--Evan,
+if ever boys were in the power of Satan they are; and to think that they
+may have an inheritance among them which are sanctified! This morning
+when I saw where some some of them lived, and imagined how they lived, I
+fell stunned for a moment. It seemed to me impossible. What means
+could possibly be found of sufficient power to fit them for such an
+inheritance? And then directly came the closing words of the commission:
+'Through faith that is in me.' Evan, God will save them; and I think he
+will let me help."
+
+"Amen!" said Mr. Roberts, and his voice was husky. When his wife was in
+one of her exalted moods he always admired her with a sort of reverence.
+He had been for years an earnest worker. He carried business plans and
+business principles into the work; he studied cause and effect, and
+calculated and expected certain results to follow certain causes, like
+a mathematical problem; not that he by any means forgot the power
+of faith, or in any sense attempted to do his work alone. He was a
+Christian who spent much time on his knees; but little Flossy brought
+so much of the childlike, unquestioning spirit into her work, that
+sometimes he stood in awe, not knowing whether he could follow her. It
+was not so much a mathematical problem to be worked out, as it was the
+faith that can remove mountains.
+
+   "As a little child relies
+     On a strength beyond his own:
+   Knows he is neither strong nor wise,
+     Fears to stir a step alone--"
+
+Mr. Roberts often found himself quoting these lines when his wife gave
+him glimpses of her heart; and at such times he had no hesitancy in
+deciding that the steps she took were not alone, but the Lord was with
+her.
+
+The postman's ring broke in on their quiet.
+
+"I hope there are letters from home to-night," Mrs. Roberts said, "real
+long ones. It is a week since we have heard."
+
+"And I ought to hope that they would require a first reading in
+private," her husband answered, as he seized his neglected pen. "It is
+the only way in which these business letters will get answered. I find
+the temptation to talk to you irresistible."
+
+One letter! but that was of comfortable dimensions and weight.
+
+"It is from Marion," Mrs. Roberts said, delight in her voice, after the
+first glance at the familiar writing. She was presently lost in its many
+pages, and the business of letter-writing went on uninterruptedly for
+some time.
+
+Mrs. Marion Dennis had not forgotten her fondness for her pretty little
+Flossy: nor forgotten that,--softly-innocent little creature though she
+was, she possessed a wisdom far above those who are credited with having
+keen insight; even a wisdom so subtle, and withal so tender, that its
+source could only be Infinite Wisdom. So she, in company with many
+others, was learning to turn to the friend so much younger than herself,
+as one in whom she could safely confide.
+
+"Dear little Flossy," so the letter ran, "I suppose, though you should
+live to be a white-haired old lady, sitting with placid face and fluted
+cap and spectacles, in your high-backed arm-chair, in the most treasured
+corner mayhap of some granddaughter's choicest room, I, writing to you,
+would still commence 'Dear little Flossy.' That I have to cover it from
+prying eyes by the dignified and respectable 'Mrs. Evan Roberts,' is
+almost a matter of amusement to me. I fancy I can see you making
+a journey through some of the Chautauqua avenues, picking your way
+daintily towards Palestine, bending lovingly over the small white stones
+that mark the village of Bethany,--a pink on your cheek, born, as I
+thought, of the excitement of being among those tiny photographs of the
+wonderful past, but born in part, I now believe, of the fact that Mr.
+Evan Roberts joined us in our walk. Oh, little mousie, how quiet you
+were!
+
+"Well, many things have since transpired. We are old married women, you,
+and Ruth, and Eurie and I. I suppose the contrast in our lives,--the
+outward portion of them, I mean,--is still as strongly marked, perhaps
+more so, than it was when we were in Chautauqua together. We were girls
+then; we are matrons now, and with the taking on of that title, Ruth and
+I took special and great responsibilities. To-night it rains. Mr. Dennis
+has been called to the upper part of the city,--away out to Springdale,
+in fact,--to see a sick and dying man, and I am alone and almost lonely.
+If I could summon any one of the three to my aid and comfort I would.
+I am almost as lonely as I was on some of those evenings in the old
+boarding-house. Still there are differences; the smoky old stove is not;
+a summer warmth floats through the house, born of steam; no ill-smelling
+kerosene lamp offends your aesthetic friend to-night, but the softest
+of shaded drop-lights sheds a halo around me. Isn't that almost poetic?
+Moreover, oh blessed thought! I have no examination papers to prepare,
+no reports to make up; nothing to do but visit with you. Also, I will
+admit just to you, that this is another and most blessed difference
+between this and my lonely past. At almost any moment now I may hope
+for Dr. Dennis' ring, and when he comes all sense of loneliness will
+instantly depart. Ah! Flossy, dear Flossy, this is such a difference as
+even you cannot appreciate! You had your mother and father, and all your
+dear home friends, and I had no one; and besides,--here I hesitate, lest
+you may be too obtuse to understand the reasoning,--you have only added
+Mr. Roberts to your circle of treasures. He is grand and good, I know,
+and I like him without even a mental reservation; but, my dear, I have
+added Dr. Dennis! Can human language say more?
+
+"Nonsense aside, sweet little woman, God has been very good to you and
+me. Yet, Flossy, do you remember how, during those last months in which
+we were together, I fell into the habit of telling you a great deal
+about the thorns, and admitted to you once that they pricked less when
+they had felt your smoothing touch? I want to tell you something. Our
+Gracie--I am so sorry for her, yet I don't know what to do. She is
+living a most unhappy life, and of course she shadows our lives also. I
+told you, dear, about Prof. Ellis. He is still trying to convince
+poor Gracie, that I, being her step-mother, must be her natural enemy;
+reminding her that before I came into the family her father was entirely
+willing to receive his calls, and allowed her to accept his attentions.
+Don't you see, it isn't strange at all that the poor little girl should
+believe him, and turn from me? She has many judicious helpers in her
+father's congregation. There are those who sigh over her almost in my
+hearing. 'Poor Gracie' they say, 'how changed she is! She used to be so
+bright and happy. There is something unnatural in these second-mother
+relations; all high-spirited children rebel.' Imagine such talk helping
+Gracie! Meantime, what do you suppose can be Prof. Ellis' motive? I
+cannot think that he cares for her; I almost do not believe that there
+is enough purity left in him even to admire a pure-hearted young girl;
+certainly not one with such high ideals and earnest ambitions as Gracie
+had. 'Why does she admire him?' I fancy I hear you asking. My dear, she
+doesn't; she thinks she does, and at seventeen such thoughts sometimes
+work irreparable mischief; but left alone, one of these days she would
+make the discovery that she was flattered by his attentions, because
+he is nearly fifteen years older than she, and is brilliant in
+conversation, and quoted as the finest musician in the city. I wish I
+knew more things about him; what I do know shows me plainly enough the
+sort of man he is; but with these guileless young things it seems as
+though one had to unmask wickedness very thoroughly before they will
+believe that it is anything but gossip or misrepresentation. He has gone
+away for a six weeks' vacation; I don't know where, nor does Dr. Dennis.
+Gracie knows, but does not enlighten me. Flossy, dear, could you give me
+a little wholesome advice, do you think? I wonder, sometimes, whether I
+was not too complacent over my proposed duties. Such schemed as I had!
+I was going to be the blessedest step-mother that girl ever had. That
+would not be saying much, possibly. Don't we all incline to think that
+the second mothers must be wrong, and the sons and daughters poor abused
+darlings? But I loved Gracie, you know, and she seemed to love me, and
+to be so happy over the thought of our near relationship. There is very
+little happiness from any such source during these days. Gracie has
+retired into dignity. She can be the most dignified young woman on
+occasion that I ever beheld. She is not rude to me, on the contrary
+she is ceremoniously polite; calls me Mrs. Dennis, and all that sort of
+thing, when necessity compels her to call me anything; but she speaks
+as little as possible; sits at table with us three times a day, when she
+cannot secure an excuse for absence that her father will accept; says
+'Yes, sir,' and 'No, sir,' obediently to him, and 'No, ma'am, thank
+you,' to me, and that is the extent of our conversation. Generally her
+face is pale and her eyes red, and at the first possible moment she begs
+to be excused, and retires to the privacy of her own room and locks her
+door. Her father has stopped her music lessons; at least she preferred
+to have them stopped rather than take lessons of any other person, so
+she practices no more. She continues her German and French, and secures
+good reports from the professors, but there is an air of weariness and
+dreariness about everything she does that makes one alternate between a
+feeling of deep pity for her, and a desire to box her ears or shut her
+up in a corner until she can behave herself. As a rule, however, I am
+sorry for her. I was young once myself. I was undisciplined, I had no
+mother, and I had a thousand wild fancies, any one of which might have
+ruined me. What do you think you would do, dear, if Mr. Roberts had a
+daughter, and you were her mother? You are all in a flush, now, and have
+lain down this sheet and said aloud: 'What an idea! Marion does say the
+most absurd things!' Well, then, if you were Marion Dennis, and stood
+before God in the place of mother to Grace Dennis, what do you imagine
+you would do? I'll tell you my policy; I am uniformly cheerful in her
+presence--gay, if I can make gayety out of anything; not toward her
+father, you understand, because I can fancy that might irritate her.
+I really try to be gay toward Gracie herself; but can you imagine an
+attempt to be cheery with a tombstone? I study as much as I can, her
+tastes, in the ordering of dinner and desserts, and arrange the flowers
+that I know she likes best, and in short try to do all those little bits
+of nice things that I feel certain you would do in my place; and just
+here I may as well own that I learned these small prettinesses, studying
+you; never should have thought them out for myself. Flossy, Dr. Dennis
+is one of the most patient and long-suffering of men, but it is very
+hard for him to be patient with poor Gracie; harder than it is for me;
+first, because I know by personal experience just what a turbulent young
+creature a miss of seventeen or eighteen can be, and secondly, because
+it is upon me her displeasure falls most heavily, and that naturally he
+resents.
+
+"Why am I writing all this to you? I don't, know, childie, really, save
+that I remember what a curious way you have of telling Jesus all about
+your friends and their trials, and I remember with great comfort that
+you are my friend. Don't imagine me as miserable; I can never be that
+so long as Christ is the present Helper that he is to me now; and you do
+not need to be told that I daily thank him for giving me my husband.
+But I think you will understand better than many would how earnestly
+I desire to fill the place of mother, to my bright young motherless
+Gracie, with her dangerous beauty and her dangerous talents and her
+capacity for being miserable. Oh, I want to do more than my duty; I want
+to love her with all my heart, and to have her love me. If it were not
+for that man, who always hated me, and who, I believe in my heart, has
+sought her out and is pressing his attentions upon her because he sees
+a possibility of stinging me through her, I might hope to fill the place
+in her heart that I thought I could."
+
+The letter closed abruptly at this point, and was finished a few days
+afterwards in a different strain, giving plenty of home news, and being
+full of the brightness which always sparkled in Marion's letters; but it
+was the first two or three pages to which Mrs. Roberts turned back, and
+which she thoughtfully re-read. Then she interrupted the busy pen:--
+
+"Evan, are not the business letters nearly done? I want to read this to
+you, and then I want to talk to you."
+
+"Delightful prospects, both of them," he said with energy, as he added
+the last hurried line, signed and delivered to his wife to enclose in
+its envelope, then pushed aside writing materials and sat back to enjoy.
+
+"It isn't all delightful," his wife said, shaking her head. "I did hope
+that poor Marion was going to have a few years of rest. Her life has
+been such a hard one."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+"TREMENDOUS FACTS!" HE SAID.
+
+
+It is well that Mrs. Marion Dennis felt entirely safe in her friend
+Flossy's hands, for her affairs were very thoroughly talked over that
+evening, and sundry conclusions arrived at.
+
+One question Mrs. Roberts asked her husband, at the close of the
+conference, which apparently had nothing to do with Marion Dennis'
+affairs:--
+
+"Evan, do you know Dr. Everett?"
+
+"Everett? Let me think--yes, I know of him; a young physician,
+comparatively, who had not been here long, and has made his mark."
+
+"In what direction?"
+
+"Several, perhaps; but I have heard of him chiefly in the line of his
+profession. He was accidentally called to attend a young lady belonging
+to a very wealthy family out in Brookline. I say accidentally--that is
+a reverent way we have of speaking, you know; of course, I mean
+providentially. The nursery governess in the family was sick, and this
+Dr. Everett, who had fallen in with her somewhere, volunteered to cure
+her. He was calling on her one morning when the sick daughter, who,
+by the way, had been given up by her physician, was taken suddenly and
+alarmingly worse; in the emergency Dr. Everett was summoned, and while
+they waited for the regular physician he succeeded in doing such good
+service that he inspired the mother with confidence; she became anxious
+to put the case entirely into his hands, which was done, and the young
+lady recovered, and Dr. Everett's position, professionally, was assured.
+Isn't that an interesting little item for you? He is said to have marked
+success; and, of course, since the Brookline occurrence his practice is
+largely among the wealthy. How has your attention been called to him?"
+
+"My protector this morning said he was a 'swell' doctor, who was
+attending that Calkins boy. I wondered if he did it because he loved
+Christ. He might be a helper. I want to call on that sick boy to-morrow
+if I can arrange it. I think I must take some one with me."
+
+"You may take me with you," her husband said, emphatically.
+
+However much trips through alleys with Nimble Dick might be conducive to
+that young man's moral development, Mr. Roberts felt that his wife had
+experimented sufficiently.
+
+Thus it transpired that, dressed in the plainest, quietest garb which
+her wardrobe would furnish, Mrs. Roberts went to the alley the next
+morning accompanied by her husband.
+
+In one sense it was a mistake that the first call in the alley should
+have been made on the Calkins family. It was calculated to give Mrs.
+Roberts mistaken ideas as to the manner in which poor people lived. A
+bare enough room, certainly, not even a bit of carpet laid before the
+bed, but it was a clean room. Floor and window and cupboard-door were as
+clean as water could make them; and the bed, while it looked hopelessly
+hard and dreadful to Mrs. Roberts, was really a pattern of neatness and
+purity to every dweller in that attic. There was a straw tick, covered
+with a dark calico spread, which did duty as a sheet, and the boy who
+lay on it was covered by a patched quilt that had been mended, and was
+clean. Wonderful things these to say of such a locality! Mr. Roberts
+suspected it, and Dr. Everett knew it. That gentleman was bending over
+his patient when the two guests arrived, and vouchsafed them not even a
+glance, while the dark-haired, dark-eyed, homely, decently-dressed girl
+gave Mrs. Roberts a seat on the one chair which the room contained, and
+set a stool for her husband that had been made of four old chair legs
+and a square board.
+
+Sallie Calkins was somewhat flurried by this unexpected call. She had no
+idea who the people were, nor for what they had come. A vague fear that
+they might be in some way connected with her brother's "place" at the
+printing-office, which he was in such fear of losing that his night had
+been a restless one, made her hasten to say, in a tremulous voice:--
+
+"The doctor thinks he will be well in a little while. It isn't a bad
+break, he says, and Mark wants to keep his place. He thinks, maybe, some
+of the alley boys would keep it for him, if you would be so kind."
+
+She was evidently addressing Mr. Roberts, but she looked at Flossy. The
+fair, sweet face, that gave her such sympathetic glances, seemed the one
+to appeal to. Mr. Roberts, however, discerned that he was mistaken for
+the employer, and immediately dispelled the idea by asking where the boy
+worked, and how the accident had happened.
+
+"It was the elevator, sir," she said, eagerly. "The chain broke, and it
+went down with a bang, and Mark was on it, and he rolled off somehow, he
+doesn't know how; and he has been that bad that he couldn't tell me
+if he had. He was kind of wild, sir, all night, and talking about his
+place."
+
+"Was there no one but you to be with him during the night?" Mrs. Roberts
+asked. "Where is the mother?"
+
+"We've got no mother, ma'am; there is only Mark and me--and father," she
+added, after a doubtful pause. "But father was not at home last night.
+Oh, I didn't need no one to take care of Mark. I wouldn't have left
+him."
+
+"And he likes to have you take care of him, I am sure. What do you give
+him to eat? He will need nourishing food, I think; beef teas and broths,
+and nice little tempting dishes, made with milk, perhaps. Are you his
+cook, too? I wonder if you wouldn't like to have me show you how to make
+good things for him? I've learned how to make some nice dishes that sick
+people like."
+
+Before the bewildered girl could answer, the doctor turned abruptly
+from his long examination of his patient, and gave the guests the first
+attention he had vouchsafed them. The truth was this man had had some
+unfortunate experiences with district visitors, and had perhaps an
+unreasonable prejudice against them as a class. "I can't help it,
+ma'am," he said to Mrs. Saunders, when she was taking him to task one
+day. "There are exceptions, of course, at least we will hope there are;
+but if you had seen some of my specimens, you would be the first to wish
+an infusion of common sense could be introduced among them. As a rule,
+they offer a tract where they should give a loaf of bread or a bowl
+of broth; and wedge their advice and reproofs in with every helpful
+movement. It is like so many doses of medicine to the patient; to be
+endured because he is at their mercy, and can't help himself. They mean
+well, the most of them; but the trouble is, we have a way of making
+district visitors out of people who have nothing to do, and who have
+never learned that 'all the nations of the earth were made of one
+blood.'"
+
+Something in Mrs. Roberts' tones or words seemed to interest him, and he
+turned toward her.
+
+"Does this alley belong to you?" he asked, abruptly, his mind still full
+of the district visitor.
+
+She regarded him with a puzzled air for a moment, then answered
+naďvely:--
+
+"I don't think it does; if it did I would have some things ever so
+different."
+
+Dr. Everett laughed; and Mr. Roberts came forward and introduced
+himself.
+
+"My wife has hardly answered you fully," he said. "I am under the
+impression that she desires to adopt a certain portion of this alley; at
+least I have heard of little else since last Sabbath afternoon. She is
+in search of some stray sheep who have been put under her care."
+
+"Ah," the doctor said, turning quickly to her, "a Sabbath-school
+teacher? Is this young man one of your scholars?"
+
+"No," she explained; "but she had heard of him while inquiring where one
+of her boys lived, and she had called to see if she could help in any
+way. Dirk Colson was the boy who, they told her, lived near this place."
+
+The eyes of the trim sister brightened.
+
+"He lives on the next square," she said. "Oh, ma'am, are you his
+teacher, and do you care for him? I'm so glad."
+
+"He is a favorite of yours, is he?" the doctor asked, looking from
+one speaking face to another, and seeming immensely interested in the
+matter.
+
+"No, indeed!" the girl said, quickly. "He's horrid! But I'm sorry for
+his sister; and she wants Dirk to get on, and he never does get on; but
+I thought maybe such a kind of a teacher could help him."
+
+There was such intense and genuine admiration in the girl's voice for
+the vision of loveliness before her that Dr. Everett could not help
+smiling.
+
+"It doesn't seem unlikely," said he, with significance; and added: "Who
+is this Dirk Colson, who seems to be an object of interest?"
+
+"He is one of the worst boys in the alley, sir; sometimes I think he
+is the very worst, because he is cross as well as hateful; but Mark is
+always kind of sorry for him, and says he has such a bad father he can't
+help it. And Mart--that's his sister--she is a friend of mine, and she
+feels bad about Dirk, but she can't do nothing; he ain't a bit like Mark
+there."
+
+The last words were spoken tenderly, and the sisterly eyes turned toward
+the boy on the bed, and obeying a sign from his eyes she went over to
+him. The doctor plied his questions:--
+
+"Have you recently taken a class, madam? and is their general reputation
+as encouraging as this special scamp of whom we are hearing?"
+
+His words almost jarred on Mrs. Roberts; she had already prayed enough
+for her boys to have a sort of tender feeling for them--a half desire
+to cover their faults from the gaze of the indifferent world. Did Dr.
+Everett represent the indifferent world, or did he love her Master? She
+wished she knew.
+
+"There is nothing encouraging about them," she said, with grave
+earnestness, "save the facts that they are made in the image of God, and
+that he wants them to 'turn from the power of Satan unto God, that they
+may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them which are
+sanctified.'"
+
+A rare flash of intelligence and appreciation greeted her now from those
+fine eyes bent so scrutinizingly on her.
+
+"Tremendous facts!" he said. "Glorious possibilities! 'Himself hath said
+it.' I claim kinship with you; I am an heir of the same inheritance."
+
+He held a hand to each, and they were cordially grasped. Then Dr.
+Everett proceeded to business.
+
+"There is enough to do," he said; "everything is lacking here; there is
+severe poverty, united to the most scrupulous tenderness and the most
+tender love on the part of this brother and sister. I stumbled on the
+case, and will do professionally all that is needed. And I have a friend
+who would undoubtedly come to the rescue, but she is crowded just now.
+I shall be rejoiced to report to her a helper. Do you know Joy Saunders?
+Well, I wish you did; she is one whom you could appreciate. She is
+young, though, and without a husband to guard her, and there are some
+places to which she cannot come."
+
+"Has she learned that important fact?" asked Mr. Roberts, with a
+significant smile. Then some explanation seemed necessary. "This lady,"
+he said, "tried the alley alone yesterday, and lost her way, and went
+lower down,--quite near to Burk Street, I imagine."
+
+"And what happened?" The quick question and the doctor's tone suggested
+possibilities not pleasant.
+
+"Oh, she met one of her new recruits,--as hard a boy, so one of the
+policemen on this beat tells me, as there is in the row,--and pressed
+him into service to escort her back to civilization; and strange to say,
+the fellow did it without placing any tricks."
+
+The doctor turned on the small lady a curious glance.
+
+"I think you may be able to do something, even for Dirk Colson," he
+said.
+
+"Do you know him?"
+
+He laughed over the eagerness of the question.
+
+"Never heard of him before. I was only thinking of our friend's
+description of his awfulness. Ah, whom have we here?"
+
+For the door had opened abruptly, and a pair of great blue eyes, set
+in a frame of tawny hair, all in a frizzle, had peered in on them. The
+vision was clothed in garments so torn the wonder was that they stayed
+on at all, and there was a general look of abject poverty about her to
+which Sallie Calkins, with all the bareness of her lot, was a stranger.
+She stood for just a moment, as if transfixed by astonishment at the
+unwonted sight in the room, then turned and sped away as swiftly and
+silently as she had come.
+
+"That is Dirk's sister," Sallie Calkins said, coming forward, her homely
+face aglow with shame. "She isn't a bad girl, ma'am, she doesn't mean to
+be, but she has a dreadful time. Her mother is sickly, and has to go out
+washing, times when she isn't able to sit up; and there'll be days when
+she can't hold up her head; and the father is bad, ma'am, and drinks,
+and swears, and sells things for drink till there ain't nothing left to
+sell; and Mart hasn't anything to mend her clothes with, and she doesn't
+know how, anyway; and she hasn't even got a comb to comb her hair with,
+her father he took it to sell; and everything there is horrid, and Dirk,
+he's awful."
+
+It was strange, she could not herself account for it; but with every
+added word of misery that set poor Dirk Colson lower and lower in the
+scale of humanity, there seemed to come into this woman's heart, and
+shine in her face, an assurance that he was to be a "chosen vessel unto
+God."
+
+The doctor was watching her again, curious, apparently, to see how this
+pitiful appeal for forbearance in judging of poor Mart affected her, and
+something in his face made her say, speaking low, "an inheritance among
+them which are sanctified."
+
+"Amen!" he said. And there came to Mrs. Roberts a feeling that this
+earnest prayer, for the second time repeated by two men who prayed, was
+a sort of seal from the Master.
+
+She turned away from both gentlemen then; the tears were very near the
+surface. She must do something to tone down the beating of her heart.
+Sallie was at hand, and she went with her to another corner of the room,
+and a low-toned conversation was carried on, scraps of which floated
+back to the gentlemen in the form of "sheets," "grape jelly," "mutton
+broth," "a soft pillow," and the like.
+
+"I feel my patient growing better," the doctor said, with satisfaction.
+
+"Is there no father here?" Mr. Roberts asked.
+
+The doctor shook his head, but answered:--
+
+"There is the most pitiful apology for a father that I ever saw,--a mere
+wreck of a man! Spends his time in a sort of weak drinking, if I may
+coin a phrase to describe him; he actually uses no energy even in that
+business. Just staggers around and bemoans his lot; a most unfortunate
+man, in his own estimation, with whom the world, through no fault of
+his, has gone wrong. He is never downright intoxicated, and never free
+from the effects of liquor. He is much like a wilted leaf in the hands
+of this boy and girl. They could pitch him out of the window without
+much difficulty, and if the fall did not kill him he would shed tears
+and say it was a hard world. But now, what do we see, when the name of
+father is so dishonored,--made a wreck, as it were? Why, the order of
+nature is reversed, and these children take on the protective. They are
+father and mother, and he is the weak, sinning child. The way that that
+boy and girl have worked to keep their miserable father from starving or
+freezing is something to astonish the very angels. They shield him,
+too; nobody who wants to reach their hearts must blame him. They are a
+study!--as different from the other inhabitants of the alley as the
+sky is different from that mud-hole down there. It isn't a good simile,
+either. There is no religion in their efforts. They are the veriest
+heathen."
+
+"How do you account for the development?"
+
+The doctor shook his head:--
+
+"I don't account for it; it is abnormal. There must have been a mother
+who left her impress. I can't learn anything about the mother--she died
+when the girl was an infant; but I would like to know her history. I
+venture to assert that she belonged to Christ, and that a gleam of the
+divine pity that she saw in him, and loved, left its impress on her
+children. That is somewhat mystical," he added, smiling. "I rarely talk
+in this way; it must have been your wife who set me off."
+
+"But she is the most practical and energetic of beings!"
+
+"Ay, so are the angels, I fancy; and make us think of heaven directly we
+hear the rustle of their wings. Has your wife been a Christian long?"
+
+"Barely two years since she began to think of these things."
+
+"I thought as much. She impresses me as one who is being led; who
+does not choose to go alone; has not learned how, indeed. A very few
+Christians never learn how, and with them the Lord does his special
+work. Well, sir; I must go. I'm glad to have met you, and glad to leave
+you here. Good morning!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+"AND SHE ALWAYS TRIED."
+
+
+Other business was transacted that morning which brought results. A
+curious habit of Mrs. Roberts',--one which, perhaps, most strongly
+marked the difference between her ways of working and those of other
+people,--was that of appealing to the person at hand for information
+on any subject which chanced to be the one prominent in her mind at the
+time.
+
+Where other and more systematic persons would have said, "He is not the
+one to ask about this matter! there is no reason for supposing that he
+has any knowledge in this direction!" Mrs. Roberts would say: "I cannot
+be sure that he may not be able to give just the information which I
+need. In any case, what harm will it do to try?" And she always tried.
+
+It was on this principle that she arrested Dr. Everett's speedy
+departure with a question:--
+
+"Dr. Everett, are you familiar with boarding-houses for young men?"
+
+Something like a vision swept instantly before the doctor, in which he
+saw the long line of young men, and the long line of boarding-houses,
+in the world, and he laughed with eyes and lips, the question seemed so
+queerly put.
+
+"With how many of them, madam?" There was amusement in his voice, but
+there was also curiosity,--he wanted to know what this original little
+lady was in search of.
+
+"One would do, if it were of just the right stamp. I'll tell you what
+I want,--a nice, quiet, comfortable _home_ sort of place, with a small
+room, capable of being warmed, a single bedstead, with a passably
+good bed, and a moderate rate of board. Are not those modest enough
+requirements?"
+
+"Not at all! They are preposterous! A boarding-house to which one could
+conveniently apply the word '_home!_' _Fire_ in a young man's room!
+He is expected to enjoy freezing in a city; and if he come from the
+country, he should be grateful for the privilege! But the idea of
+calling for a good bed! That is the wildest suggestion of all! Has she
+ever boarded, Mr. Roberts?"
+
+"Not at a boarding-house, at least," said that gentleman, enjoying the
+fun.
+
+But Mrs. Roberts looked grave.
+
+"Are you serious?" she asked, gently. "Is there no chance in this great
+city for a Christian young man to have the ordinary comforts of common
+life; just a little quiet room where he can pray, and where he can
+invite some tempted soul, and try to help him? Doesn't it seem all
+wrong?"
+
+The laugh was gone from the doctor's face. There was a look of keen
+interest and genuine respect.
+
+"How many young men are you thinking about? There are many Christians, I
+believe, among that class,--poor young men, away from home,--and I have
+reason to fear that their chances for comfortable retirement are very
+scarce. I have thought about the problem somewhat how to help them. In
+the concrete, I don't see the way. Of how many are you thinking?"
+
+"I am willing to think about them all," Mrs. Roberts said,--and now it
+was her turn to laugh,--"but I am panning for just one. I cannot work in
+great ways, but I thought I might help one."
+
+"Exactly! Mr. Roberts, if every Christian in our city would undertake
+to help _one_, the problem would be solved. Well, there is one
+boarding-house to which the word 'home' may properly be applied; and
+there is one small room on the third floor vacated yesterday. I wonder
+if the Master wants it for your young man? It seems to me if there is
+any one thing more than another that we need in that house just now it
+is a Christian young man. Of what type is your friend? Will he help or
+hinder a gay young scamp much sought after by Satan?"
+
+"He will try hard to help," said both Mr. and Mrs. Roberts. And before
+they parted the doctor had taken Mr. Ried's address, and promised to
+call on him and negotiate the matter.
+
+"That plan will work in two ways," said Mrs. Roberts, gleefully. "Mr.
+Ried will be in the same home with, and somewhat under the influence of
+that grand doctor. Isn't it splendid that we asked just him?"
+
+And her husband smilingly assented, and added that he should not have
+thought of such a thing as asking him.
+
+On her way down town, Mrs. Roberts had dropped a letter in the mail,
+which also brought results. It read thus:--
+
+"DEAR MARION,--I have time for but a line, for I want to catch the
+morning mail. I have such a nice plan. Suppose you let your Gracie come
+and stay with me for a few weeks. You know she always liked me a little,
+and Evan and I think we can make it pleasant for her. I will try to get
+her so much interested in seven boys whom I know that she will forget
+all about Professor Ellis. Mr. Barnwell a confidential clerk in the
+store (old and gray-headed), will go to-morrow to transact some business
+with papa. Evan will give him a letter of introduction to Dr. Dennis. He
+expects to return on Saturday, and if you will trust Gracie to us, and
+she is willing to come, she might travel in Mr. Barnwell's care, and
+we would meet her at the depot. Dear Marion, we should like it ever
+so much: and I have prayed about it all the morning, and cannot help
+thinking that Jesus likes it too."
+
+Thus it came to pass that when Mrs. Roberts took her seat on the next
+Sabbath afternoon before her seven boys at the South End Mission, a
+vision of loveliness, such as the mission had not often seen, came in
+with her, and looked with wide-open eyes on all the new and strange
+sights and sounds about her. A very pretty creature was Gracie Dennis.
+Her eyes had lost none of their brightness, although they had shed some
+tears during her recent experiences. They were fairly sparkling to-day,
+for the great city into which she had come for the first time was like
+fairyland to her; albeit, she had passed through scenes that afternoon
+which bore no resemblance to her idea of fairyland. What the boys
+thought of her could only be determined from their stares. Let us hope
+that her presence had nothing to do with their conduct, for never,
+in all the annals of the South End Mission, had seven boys comported
+themselves as did those before whom Mrs. Roberts sat that winter
+afternoon.
+
+Nimble Dick, as if to be revenged for his unintentional courtesy of the
+Monday before, placed his ill-kept feet on the seat in front of him, in
+alarming proximity to Mrs. Roberts' shoulders, and chewed his tobacco,
+and defiled the floor with its juice, and talked aloud, and was in
+every sense disgusting. Neither was Dirk Colson one whit behind him. The
+spirit of entertainment was upon him. He mimicked Mr. Durant's somewhat
+hoarse tones, exaggerating the imitation, of course, until it was
+ludicrous. He imitated the somewhat shrill tenor, and the nasal tones
+of Deacon Carter, who was doing good work with a class of meek-looking
+women. He even imitated Mrs. Roberts' soft, low voice, as she essayed to
+interest them in Moses and some of the wonders which he performed.
+
+Vain hope! Struggle as she might to be intensely dramatic in her
+narrative, she did not for a moment gain the ascendency.
+
+"Moses?" interrupted Nimble Dick in the very midst of one of her most
+earnest sentences. "Let's see! that was the old fellow who swallowed the
+serpents, wasn't it? I should have thought he would have been used up."
+
+"You don't know nothin'," interrupted Stephen Crowley, with a nudge at
+Dirk that the latter pretended tipped him entirely off the seat, and
+left him a limp heap at Mrs. Robert' feet.
+
+"He don't know nothin'!" repeated Stephen, addressing Mrs. Roberts in
+a confidential tone. "'T was the serpents swallowed Moses, wasn't it?
+Question is, How did he get around again?"
+
+"Quit that!" came at this point from Dirk Colson, in his fiercest tone.
+"Look here, you Bill Snyder, if you try pinching on me again I'll pitch
+you over the head of old Durant in less than a second!"
+
+What was the poor, pale little woman to do? With one boy crawling about
+the floor and two others in a hand-to-hand fight, with the rest in a
+giggle, of what use to try to talk to them about Moses? You should have
+seen Gracie Dennis eyes by that time! Horror and disgust were about
+equally expressed, and rising above them both, a look of actual fear.
+Mr. Durant came over to attempt a rescue, his face distressed beyond
+measure.
+
+"Mrs. Roberts, this is too much. I am sure that patience has ceased to
+be a virtue. They have never gone so far before. I suspected mischief
+to-day. I have heard from several of them during the week, and never
+anything but evil. I am prepared for it; there is a full police force
+on guard in the next room; what I propose is to have every one of these
+fellows taken to the lock-up. It will be a lesson that they richly
+deserve, and may do them good."
+
+Whispering was not one of Mr. Durant's strong points. He meant to convey
+secret intelligence of carefully-laid plans to Mrs. Roberts alone. In
+reality not a boy in the class but heard every word. They were startled
+into silence. "A full police force!" They were not fonder of the lock-up
+than are most boys who deserve that punishment. They were skilful in
+escaping the hands of policemen. They had not believed that the South
+End Mission would resort to any such means. They recognized in the
+Mission an attempt to do them good; and, without any effort at reasoning
+it out, they had by tacit consent decided that policemen and lock-ups
+and Christian effort did not match. They had chuckled much over the
+stationing of "little Duffer" at the door on guard. Any two of the
+strong young fellows were a match for him, and in the event of a riot,
+which they would like no better fun than to help get up, how many choice
+spirits all about the room would join them if given the word, and in the
+delightful confusion which would result how easy to escape from sight
+and hearing while Policeman Duffer was summoning aid! They had felt
+comparatively safe. But "a full police force" detailed for duty was
+quite another thing. They felt caught in a trap. Nimble Dick got up in
+haste from the floor and took his seat, and the boys looked from one to
+another with ominous frowns. There were reasons why none of them cared
+to come before the police court just now. What was to be done?
+
+While they waited and considered, Mrs. Roberts did it. Her hand was on
+Mr. Durant's arm, and directly the loud whispering ceased, she spoke in
+low, but distinctly emphatic tones:--
+
+"I beg of you, Mr. Durant, do no such thing. I would dismiss every
+policeman at once, with thanks, if I were you. We shall not need their
+help. I give you my word of honor that the boys will be quiet during
+the rest of the session, not because they are afraid of policemen,
+but because they respect me, and do not want to see me frightened or
+annoyed. Please don't let a policeman come near us."
+
+I am not sure which was the more astonished, the superintendent or
+the boys. He returned to his desk with the bewildered air of one whose
+deep-laid schemes had come to naught in an unexpected manner without
+giving him time to rally; and the boys looked at one another in
+perplexity, and were silent.
+
+Mrs. Roberts turned to them with quiet voice:--
+
+"Boys," she said, "you have spoiled the story that I was going to tell
+you. I have lost my place, and there isn't time to go back and find it.
+I am sorry, for I think you would have liked the story. I spent a good
+deal of time this week trying to make it interesting. But never mind
+now, there is something else I want to say. Will you spend the hours
+from eight to ten with me to-morrow evening at my house? I brought cards
+with me for each of you, containing my address, that you might have no
+trouble in finding the place."
+
+Whereupon she produced the delicate bits of pasteboard, with her name
+and address handsomely engraved thereon.
+
+Nimble Dick took his between his soiled thumb and finger, turned it over
+in a pretence of great interest, and finally endeavored to "sight" it
+with his eye, as a workman does his board.
+
+"What'll you do with us if we come?" Stephen Crowley asked, fixing what
+was intended as a wise look upon her, the leer in his eye hinting that
+he was smart enough to see another trap, and meant not to fall into it.
+
+Mrs. Roberts laughed pleasantly.
+
+"It is an unusual question, when one invites company," she said; "but I
+don't mind answering it. For one thing I thought we would have an oyster
+stew and some good coffee together. Then, if any of you like music, I
+have a friend with me who is a good singer; and I have a few pictures I
+should like you to see, if you cared to; and--I don't know whether you
+are fond of flowers, but some of you may have a mother, or sister at
+home who is, and the greenhouse is all aglow just now. Oh, how can I
+tell what I should do to entertain guests? Just what seemed to me to be
+pleasant at the time. That is the way I generally do. May I expect you?"
+
+The boys stared. This was a new departure, indeed! How much of it
+did she mean? What was she trying to do? Was it a trap? Still she had
+rescued them from the police force, and they had not expected that,
+for every boy of them knew that he had treated her shamefully. Timothy
+Haskell was generally the quietest one of the group, and perhaps the
+most straightforward. He went directly to the point of the question that
+he saw in the eyes of the others.
+
+"What do you do it for?"
+
+"Yes, that's the talk," said Nimble Dick. "What do you want of us?"
+
+"Why, I want you to spend the evening with me. Didn't I tell you? If
+you really mean to be friends with me of course I must invite you to my
+home. What _could_ I want except to have a nice time? I'm trying to make
+you like me. Of course I want you to like me. How can we have pleasant
+times together unless you do?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+"I HAVE BUT TO TRY AGAIN"
+
+
+"Pleasant times like we've been having to-day?" said Nimble Dick, with a
+wicked leer.
+
+If he meant to disconcert her, he missed his point.
+
+"No!" she said, promptly, "we haven't had a bit nice times to-day, and
+as for liking you, I haven't done so to-day at all. If I had the least
+idea that you meant often to treat me as you have this afternoon I
+should know it was of no use. But I cannot think that you will continue
+to treat a lady in such a manner, particularly when I am really trying
+to make a pleasant time for you. There is no object, you see, in
+spoiling it."
+
+This plain bit of truth, for the time being so commended itself to the
+judgment of the boys that they regarded the speaker gravely, without
+attempting a reply. She was not moralizing; at least it was unlike any
+moralizing that they had ever heard. It seemed to be simply a bit of
+practical common sense. Not a boy would have owned it, but each felt,
+just at that moment, a faint hope that she would _not_ decide it was
+of no use, and give them up. Straightforward Tim Haskell had one more
+question to ask:--
+
+"Why didn't you let them bring in their police and settle us?"
+
+Their teacher hesitated just a moment. Would the "whole truth" do to
+speak in this case? Could she hope to make them understand that she saw
+in it a step lower down, and that thus degraded before her eyes, she
+feared her possible hold on them would be gone forever? No; it wouldn't
+do! A little, a _very_ little piece of the truth was all that she could
+treat them to. A faint sparkle in her bright eyes, which every one of
+them saw, and she said:--
+
+"I was afraid you might not be excused in time to keep your engagement
+with me to-morrow evening."
+
+They all laughed, not boisterously, actually an appreciative laugh. They
+were bright; there is hardly a street boy living by his wits who isn't.
+They recognized the humor hidden in the answer, and enjoyed it.
+
+Then the superintendent's bell rang. That bell always did seem to have
+an evil influence on those boys. Indeed, Mrs. Roberts was known to
+remark, a few Sundays afterwards, that if there _were_ no opening and
+closing exercises in the Sabbath-school, her work would be easier; that
+street boys did not seem to have one element of devotion in them, and
+needed to be kept at high pressure, in order to be able to control
+themselves.
+
+The thought is worthy of study, perhaps. It is just possible that our
+opening and closing exercises are too long drawn out even for those who
+are not street boys.
+
+Be that as it may, the little spell which Mrs. Roberts had been able for
+a few minutes to weave around her boys on this particular Sabbath, was
+broken by the sound of the bell. The boys returned to their memories of
+insult, as they regarded the police force. They muttered sullenly among
+themselves about "traps" and "sells," and "guessed they wouldn't get
+caught here again;" and Mrs. Roberts, seeming not to hear, heard with a
+heavy heart.
+
+How angry they looked! Even Nimble Dick's usually merry face was clouded
+over. What a curious thing it was that even they had their ideas
+of propriety, and felt themselves insulted! Was it an instinct, she
+wondered--a reminder that there was in them material for manhood?
+
+Would they ever, any of them, be men--Christian gentlemen? It seemed
+almost too great a stretch for even her imagination. As she moved in
+her seat her delicately-embroidered, perfumed handkerchief fell to
+the floor. Mrs. Roberts was used to young men--mere boys, even--whose
+instinctive movement would be to instantly restore it to her. Not a boy
+before her thought of such a thing. She had not expected it, of course.
+Yet she wondered if the instinct were not dormant, needing but the
+suggestion. It was a queer little notion, worthy of Flossy Shipley
+herself, who, from being continually busy about little things, had come
+to the conclusion that nothing anywhere was little; that the so-called
+trifles, which make up many lives, had much to do with the happiness of
+other lives. Was it worth her while to try to teach these street Arabs
+to pick up fallen handkerchiefs? She differed from many Christian
+workers, in that, in her simplicity, she really thought it was.
+
+There was a lull just at that moment. A hymn had been announced, but the
+organist's note-book had been mislaid, and was being sought after. It
+could disturb no one if Mrs. Roberts tried her little experiment. She
+looked longingly at Dirk Colson, but his brows were black and his eyes
+fierce; this was no time to reach him. Nimble Dick looked much more
+approachable. She determined to venture him:--
+
+"Mr. Bolton," spoken in her sweetest voice, "I have dropped my
+handkerchief."
+
+"Anybody with half an eye could see that, mum; and a mighty dirty spot
+you picked out for such a nice little rag to lie in."
+
+This was her only response. Then the discomfited experimenter told
+herself that she was a blunderer. How could the poor fellow be expected
+to know what she meant? Why had she not _asked_ the service from him?
+She would try again.
+
+Would he be kind enough to pick it up for her? It was long afterwards
+before Mrs. Roberts could think of his answer without a sinking heart.
+Fixing bold, saucy eyes on her, he spoke in deliberate tones, loud
+enough to be heard half-way across the room:--
+
+"Why, pick it up yourself, mum! It is as near to you as it is to me, and
+you don't look weakly."
+
+She picked it up, her poor cheeks burning, but she did not forget it.
+
+Various after-school conferences told their different stories.
+
+"Well!" Mr. Durant said, stopping in the act of mopping his hot forehead
+to shake hands with her, "Mrs. Roberts, I honor your courage. Those boys
+were simply fearful to-day; I really feared some outbreak that would be
+hard to quell. I'm afraid we shall have to give them up. Yes, I know how
+you feel: but you haven't been here to see what we have borne from
+them. All sorts of teachers have been tried. We have given them the best
+material we had, both men and women, and every one has failed. Then you
+actually want to try it for another Sabbath! Well, I'm glad of it. Oh,
+_I_ don't want to give them up; it makes my heart ache to think of it;
+but if we can't keep them in sufficient order to get any benefit, nor
+find a teacher who is willing to hold on to them, what else is there for
+us to do? But that last complaint I needn't make so long as you 'hold
+on,' need I?" This last with a genial smile. "Well, God bless you; I
+couldn't begin to tell you how much I hope you will succeed."
+
+But his face said: "However, I know you won't."
+
+He turned from her and said as much to young Ried:--
+
+"She is in earnest, Ried, and she has resources; but she won't catch
+them, simply because they don't mean to be caught; they come here
+to make trouble and for nothing else. Just look at the way they have
+performed to-day--worse than ever, and they never had a better teacher.
+I've watched her, and I believe she knows how. I'll tell you what it is,
+Ried, we must hold on to her, and when she gives up those boys we must
+secure her for that class of girls down by the door. I really think we
+have a prize."
+
+Now, if he had but known it, Mrs. Evan Roberts meant to teach no other
+class at the South End Mission save those boys.
+
+"Flossy Shipley!" This was Gracie Dennis' exclamation; when she was very
+much excited, she went back to the old name. "What _are_ you trying to
+do with those horrid boys? and how can you endure their impudence? I
+never saw anything like their actions in my life, and I thought I had
+seen bad boys. You look completely worn out, and no wonder. I shouldn't
+think Mr. Roberts would let you do this. What good can you do such
+creatures, Flossy?"
+
+"My dear Gracie, don't you think that Jesus Christ died to save them?"
+
+"Well!" said Gracie, hesitatingly. It was a favorite phrase with her, as
+it is with many people when they don't know what to say next.
+
+"And don't you think he wants them saved? And will he not be pleased
+with even my little bits of efforts if he knows that my sincere desire
+is to save these souls for his glory?"
+
+"But what I mean is, what good can you do them so long as they act as
+they do now? They didn't listen to a word you said, so as to get any
+good out of it."
+
+"I don't know that, dear, nor do you. Don't you think the Holy Spirit
+sometimes presses words on people that they do not seem to be heeding?
+In any event, that is a part with which I have nothing to do. I tried;
+and if I failed utterly I have but to try again. It isn't as though
+there were some good teacher ready to take them. Nobody will make a
+second effort. Now there is one thing I can certainly do. I can keep on
+making efforts; who knows but some of them may bear fruit? By the way,
+Gracie, I want ever so much of your help."
+
+"Mine?"' said Gracie, with wide-open eyes. "I don't know how to
+help people; I'm not good." And her face darkened in a frown,--some
+unpleasant memories that went far toward proving the truth of that
+statement coming to mind just then. After a moment she spoke in a
+somewhat more gentle tone: "Don't count on me, Flossy, for help about
+those boys. They frighten me; I never saw such fellows. I couldn't help
+wondering what--papa would have said to them."
+
+Between the "wondering" and the noun there had been an observable pause.
+Mrs. Roberts suspected that the thought in Gracie's mind was rather what
+Mrs. Dennis, who was supposed to have much knowledge of boys, would have
+thought of them. But since her arrival Gracie had studiously avoided any
+reference to her stepmother, and Mrs. Roberts had humored her folly.
+
+"Never mind, you can help them; and when you begin to realize that, you
+will forget your fears."
+
+"Do you expect to see one of the creatures to-morrow evening? What in
+the world would you do with them if they did come?"
+
+"I'm not sure that I _expect_ them. I only hope for them. As to what
+to do with them, I trust to you to help answer that question. I want to
+give them an idea of what a nice time is."
+
+"I cannot help," said Gracie again, but she was _interested_, and
+referred again and again to the subject, cross-questioning Mrs. Roberts
+as to her plans and hopes, until that lady gave a satisfied smile to the
+thought that her seven boys had begun their work.
+
+The first part of this conversation was held while they waited in one of
+the class-rooms for Mr. Ried to give in his report before joining them.
+The waiting suggested to Gracie another question.
+
+"Who is this Mr. Ried, who seems to have us in charge?"
+
+"He is one of the clerks from the store, which accounts, in part, for
+his attendance on us. But I am interested in him for other reasons. He
+had a wonderful sister; that is, she was a wonderful Christian; she died
+when quite young, but one might be ready to go to heaven early if
+one had accomplished as much as she did. By one of those strange
+arrangements, which I should think would go far toward making observing
+people believe in a special Providence, her life, or I might almost say
+her death, was the means of changing the current of my husband's life.
+He says he was a gay young fellow; a member of the church, but giving
+just as little attention to religion as many do whom you and I know.
+An accident to one of his family held him for several weeks in the town
+where this Ester Ried lived; and her physician, with whom he became
+acquainted, introduced him to her. It seems she was very much interested
+in young men, in their Christian development. He went to see her several
+times; and, to use his own expression, she first made him realize that
+there was such a thing as zeal, and then she set it on fire. What she
+had begun in life she finished in her death. Evan attended her funeral
+services, and the walls were hung with Bible texts of her selection.
+The most wonderful texts! All about Christian work, and about being in
+earnest, because the time was short. Evan says he began to understand,
+then, that the service of Christ was first, best, and always.
+
+"Wasn't it a singular Providence that led him under the influence of
+that young girl during the closing weeks of her life? Only think, he has
+been doing her work ever since,--doing it, possibly, in ways that she
+could not compass. That is one reason why I am so much interested in
+those boys. It seems to me as though they were her boys. Did I tell you
+that her heart went out especially after the neglected? I learned about
+the boys through Mr. Ried. He was but a child when his sister died, and
+yet she succeeded in so enthusing him with her ideas that he is all the
+time trying to carry out her plans. She had some wonderful ones. This
+idea of inviting the boys, socially, I had from her. Do you see how
+plainly she is working yet, though she has been in heaven so long?"
+
+"Do you think," asked Gracie Dennis, a timid, gentle sound to her voice,
+"that all Christians ought to put religion 'first, best, and always,'
+as your husband said? I fancied that some were set apart to do a special
+work."
+
+"We are all set apart, dear, don't you think? Given to Him to use as He
+will. The trouble is that so many of us take back the gifts, and use our
+time and our tongues as though they were our own."
+
+"Our _tongues_!" repeated Gracie, amazement in her voice.
+
+"Why, yes; didn't you give Him your tongue when you gave Him yourself?
+And yet you are fortunate if you have not dishonored Him with it many a
+time."
+
+Said Gracie, "What a queer way you have of putting things."
+
+Then came Alfred Ried in haste, and apologizing for the long delay.
+Gracie Dennis, watched him curiously; listened critically to his words.
+Was it to be supposed that this young man put religion "first, best, and
+always"; and considered his tongue as given to the Lord? Alfred bore the
+scrutiny well. He took very little notice of Miss Gracie, being entirely
+absorbed with another matter. He had settled opinions about Mrs. Roberts
+now, from which he would not be likely to waver. He had seen much of her
+during the week, and he knew she had not been idle. She had given
+him much valuable information concerning the boys in whom he had been
+interested all winter; and whom she had known for a week. Also he was
+aware that Sally and Mark Calkins had seen much of her, to their great
+benefit. She had made him her messenger on one occasion, and he had seen
+Sally Calkins take from the basket the clean, sweet-smelling sheets that
+were to freshen her brother's bed, and bestow on them rapturous kisses,
+while she murmured, "I'd walk on my knees in broad daylight through the
+gutter to serve her,--that I would."
+
+"Sheets aren't much, I suppose," moralized the young man, as he walked
+thoughtfully homeward. "People with much less money than she has
+must have furnished them. It is thinking about things that makes the
+difference between her and others."
+
+But he had not quite found the secret. The main difference between her
+and many other people lay in the fact that she set steadily about doing
+the things she thought of that would be nice to do.
+
+On the whole, young Ried was fully prepared to sympathize with Mr.
+Durant's opinion, that the South End Mission had secured a prize. Not
+that he was very hopeful over those boys. He felt that their conduct,
+under the circumstances, showed a depth of depravity which was beyond
+the reach of Mission schools; but it was a comfort to think that good
+things were arranged for them if they had but chosen to receive. He
+began at once to talk about them.
+
+"Mrs. Roberts, they are worse than I had supposed. I am afraid that your
+patience is exhausted."
+
+Her answer was peculiar.
+
+"Mr. Ried, I want you to spend to-morrow evening with me. I have invited
+my boys, and I depend on you and Gracie here to help entertain them."
+
+"Are you equal to such formidable work as that?" asked Gracie, with a
+mischievous smile.
+
+He did not respond to the smile; he was looking at Mrs. Roberts,
+studying her face as one bewildered with the rapidity of her moves.
+
+"I want to be," he said, with feeling; "I want to know how to work,
+and I'm learning. Mrs. Roberts, I moved to my new boarding-house last
+evening, and my room is a perfect little gem. There is an illuminated
+text in it, and all around it is twined an ivy, growing,--don't you
+think! Hidden, you know, behind the frame in a bottle; and the text is
+one of my sister's treasures. Isn't that a singular coincidence?"
+
+"It is very nice," said Mrs. Roberts, with satisfied eyes. She still
+made much use of that little word.
+
+"And, Mrs. Roberts, I asked one of your boys to come in this evening and
+see my room."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+"I WANT THEM TO GET USED TO PARLORS."
+
+
+"Those two people can think and talk of nothing but those dreadful
+boys," said Gracie to herself, half annoyed and wholly interested.
+She found herself that very evening turning over the music, with the
+wonderment in her mind as to what she could sing that they would be
+likely to care for, provided one of them appeared, which thing she did
+not expect.
+
+But I have not told you of all the discussions had that day. The boys
+went their various ways, their minds also busy with the events of the
+afternoon. Dirk Colson and Stephen Crowley went off together; not that
+they were special friends, but their homes lay near together. For the
+distance of half a block they walked in silence; then Stephen Crowley
+spoke his mind:--
+
+"Nimble Dick wasn't near as smart to-day as he thinks he was, accordin'
+to my way of thinkin'."
+
+"He was meaner than dirt!" burst forth Dirk, fiercely. "To go back on
+her like that, after she had saved us from a row with the police, ain't
+what I believe in. Why couldn't he have picked up the rag, seeing she
+wanted him to? That's what _I_ say. I'd a done it myself if she had give
+me the chance."
+
+"That there Dick Bolton can be too mean for anything when he sets
+out," said Stephen, with a grave air of superiority. "I don't go in for
+anything of that kind myself. We wasn't none of us much to boast of;
+but Dick, he went too fur. I say, Dirk, what do you s'pose all that yarn
+means about to-morrow night? And what be we goin' to do about it? Dick,
+he said it was all a game to get hold of us somehow, and he wasn't goin'
+to have nothin' to do with it."
+
+Had Stephen Crowley desired exceedingly to secure Dirk's vote in favor
+to the proposed entertainment he could not, at that moment, have chosen
+a better way. Dirk tossed his thick mat of black hair in a defiant
+fashion and answered:--
+
+"He needn't have a thing to do with it, so far as I care. I don't know
+who'll miss him; but if he thinks he's got all the fellows under his
+thumb, and they're goin' to do as he says, I'll show him a thing or two.
+_I'm_ a goin' to-morrow night. I don't care what it is, nor what it is
+for. She was nice and friendly to us to-day, and I'm willin' to trust
+her to-morrow. I shall go up there and see what she does want. It can't
+kill a fellow to do that much."
+
+"Then I'm a goin', too," declared Stephen, with decision. "Dick, he
+thinks there won't none of us go if he don't; and I'd just like to show
+him that he must get up early in the mornin' if he wants to keep track
+of us."
+
+If Dirk Colson needed anything to strengthen his resolution, there was
+material in that last sentence which supplied it. He had long
+chafed under the control of Dick Bolton; here was a chance to assert
+superiority. He even, just at that moment, conceived the brilliant idea
+of supplanting Dick--running an opposition party, as it were.
+
+What if he should get every fellow in the class to promise to go, and
+Dick, the acknowledged leader, should find himself left out alone in the
+cold. The thought actually made his grim face break into a smile. Thus
+it came to pass that the most efficient worker for the success of the
+Monday evening entertainment, so far at least as securing the presence
+of the guests, was Dirk Colson.
+
+In Mr. Roberts' mansion preparations for receiving and entertaining the
+hoped-for guests went briskly forward. Preparations which astonished the
+young guest already arrived.
+
+"Are you really going to let them come in here?" she asked, as she
+followed Mrs. Roberts through the elegant parlors, and watched her
+putting delicate touches here and there.
+
+"Certainly; why not? Don't you open your parlors when you receive your
+friends?"
+
+"I don't think we have such peculiar friends on our list," Gracie said,
+with a little laugh; and then, "Flossy, they will spoil your furniture."
+
+"If one evening in the Master's service will spoil anything it surely
+ought to be spoiled," Mrs. Roberts answered, serenely.
+
+"But, Flossy,"--with a touch of impatience in her voice,--"what is the
+use? Wouldn't the dining-room answer every purpose; be to them the most
+elegant room they ever beheld, and be less likely to suffer from their
+contact?"
+
+The busy little mistress of all the beauty around her turned to her
+guest with a peculiar smile on her face, half mischievous and wholly
+sweet, as she said:--
+
+"I want them to get used to parlors, my dear; they may have much to do
+with them, as well as with dining-rooms."
+
+"They are more likely to have to do with penitentiaries and prisons,"
+Gracie said; but she abandoned discussion, and gave herself to the
+pleasure of arranging lonely flowers in their lovely vases.
+
+There was a divided house as to the probability of the guests
+appearing,--Mr. Roberts inclining to the belief that some of them would
+come, while Gracie was entirely skeptical. Mrs. Roberts kept her own
+counsel, neither expressing wish nor fear, but steadily pushing her
+preparations.
+
+As a matter of fact, the entire seven appeared together, promptly, as
+the clock struck eight.
+
+At the last moment Dick Bolton, the usual leader, finding himself in
+a minority of one, not to be outwitted, protested that he had not the
+least notion of staying away; of course he was going, and good-naturedly
+joined the group.
+
+I wonder if you have the least conception of how those boys looked? The
+ideas of some people cannot get below nicely-patched clothes, carefully
+brushed boots, clean collars, and neatly arranged hair.
+
+Clean collars! Not a boy of them owned a collar. No thought of brushing
+their worn-out, unmended boots ever entered their minds. Their clothes
+were much patched, but in many places needed it still.
+
+Stephen Crowley had made a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to put his mass
+of hair in order. Most of the others had not thought even of that. Why
+should they? Poor Dirk, you will remember, if he had thought of it, had
+no comb with which to experiment. It is doubtful if many of the others
+were any better off in this respect.
+
+Imagine the seven standing, a confused, grinning, heap, in the centre of
+Mrs. Roberts' large and brilliantly-lighted hall!
+
+She came forward to welcome them, shaking hands, though they made no
+attempt to offer a hand in greeting. She had to grasp after each. She
+essayed to introduce Gracie; not one of them attempted a bow.
+
+"Come this way," Mrs. Roberts said, "and take seats." Then she led the
+way into the long, bright, elegantly-furnished, flower-decked room.
+
+They followed her in a row. Midway in the room they made a halt. They
+caught a view of themselves--full length at that--revealed by the great
+mirrors. They had never seen themselves set in contrast before. They
+could not sit in a row, for the easy chairs and sofas, though plentiful,
+had the air of having been just vacated by people who had left them
+carelessly just where they had chanced to sit.
+
+It required diplomacy to seat those boys. When at last Stephen Crowley
+dropped into one of the great pillowy chairs, he instantly sprang up
+again, and looked at it doubtfully.
+
+Was the thing a trap? How far down would it sink with him? This was
+too much for Nimble Dick, even under the present overpowering
+circumstances--he laughed. His hostess blessed him for that laugh. The
+horrible stiffness was somewhat broken, and all were seated.
+
+Just at that moment came Alfred Ried, hurriedly, like one who had
+intended promptness and missed it.
+
+"All here ahead of me!" he exclaimed, "Mrs. Roberts, I beg your pardon.
+At the last moment I went in search of Dr. Everett; there was serious
+illness in a house next door, and I happened to know just where he was."
+
+During this address he was shaking hands with his hostess, his manner
+easy and graceful, as one used to it all. Then he crossed the room, that
+wonderful room, treading down those flowers on the carpet as though he
+had no fears of breaking their stems.
+
+"Good evening, Miss Dennis," he said, and he was bowing in a manner that
+Dirk Colson was confident he could imitate. Then he turned to the boys,
+shaking hands:--
+
+"How are you, Haskell? By the way, Crowley, I called on you to-day at
+the office; sorry not to find you in."
+
+"Mrs. Roberts, allow me?" And he wheeled one of the easy chairs to the
+spot where that lady was standing.
+
+"How well he enters into the thing," said Gracie Dennis to herself,
+looking on in admiration at this young man, who, still so young, was
+adapting himself to circumstances that might well have embarrassed older
+heads than his. He plunged into talk with the boys, making them answer
+questions. He had come but a few moments before from Mark Calkins',
+stopped there with a message from Dr. Everett; and these boys knew Mark
+and Sallie and the worthless father, and all the more or less worthless
+neighbors who ran in and out, and young Ried had a dozen questions to
+ask. His quick-wittedness, and the ease with which he made talk to these
+young men who lived in such an utterly different world from himself,
+surprised his hostess very much.
+
+Even she did not know to what an exalted pitch his enthusiasm and
+excitement reached; though he had flashed a pair of most appreciative
+eyes on her when she gave him her invitation for the evening. Here was
+actually his sister Ester's darling scheme being worked out before his
+eyes! Not only that, but he was being called upon to help. Ester had
+wanted him to grow up to undertake just such efforts as these; and only
+last week they had seemed to him so altogether good and noble and so
+impossible to try. Yet here he was helping try them! No wonder Alfred
+Ried could talk.
+
+It had been determined in family council that Mr. Roberts must absent
+himself. He was in the house, indeed--no further away than the library,
+ready for call in event of an emergency; but it was judged that another
+stranger, and such a formidable one as the head of the house, must be
+avoided for this one evening. As for Mr. Ried, _would_ they remember
+that he was not much older than some of them, and that he was not a
+rich young man living on his income, but was earning his living by daily
+work? and would they note the contrast between themselves and him? This
+was what their hostess wondered. A few moments and then came a summons
+to the dining-room. Seated at last, though one of the poor fellows
+stumbled over a chair, and barely saved himself from falling.
+
+If you could have seen that dining-table, the picture of it would have
+lingered long in your memory. The whitest and finest of damask table
+linen; napkins so large that they almost justified Dick Bolton's
+whisper, "What be you goin' to do with your sheet?" china so delicate
+that Gracie Dennis could not restrain an inward shiver when any of the
+clumsy fingers touched a bit of it, and such a glitter of silver as even
+Gracie had never seen before.
+
+One thing was different from the conventional tea-party. Every servant
+was banished; none but tender eyes, interested in her experiment, and
+ready to help it on, should witness the blunders of the boys. So
+the hostess had decreed, and so instructed Alfred and Gracie. The
+consequence was that Alfred himself served the steaming oysters with
+liberal hand, and Gracie presided over jellies and sauces, while Mrs.
+Roberts sugared and creamed and poured cups of such coffee as those
+fellows had never even _smelled_ before. If you think they were
+embarrassed to the degree that they could not eat, you are mistaken.
+
+They were street boys; their lives had been spent in a hardening
+atmosphere. Directly the first sense of novelty passed away, and their
+poorly-fed stomachs craved the unusual fare served up for them, the
+fellows grinned at one another, seized their silver spoons, and dived
+into the stews in a fashion that would have horrified every servant in
+the house.
+
+How they ate! Oysters and coffee and pickles and cakes and jellies!
+There seemed no limit to their capacities; neither did they make the
+slightest attempt to correct their table manners. None of them paid any
+outward attention to their "sheets," although Alfred and Gracie spread
+theirs with elaborate care; they leaned their elbows on the table, they
+made loud, swooping sounds with their lips, and, in short, transgressed
+every law known to civilized life. Why not?
+
+What did they know about civilized life?
+
+Nevertheless, not one movement of young Ried escaped the notice of some
+of them.
+
+He tried still to carry on a conversation; though the business of
+eating was being too closely attended to on all sides to let him be very
+successful.
+
+Gracie studied _him_, and was not only interested in his efforts, but
+roused to make some attempts herself. What could she talk about with
+such people? School? The Literary Club? The last concert? The course
+of lectures? The last new book that everybody was reading? No, not
+everybody; assuredly not these seven.
+
+On what ground _was_ she to meet them?
+
+Yet talk she must and would. Mr. Ried should see that she at least
+_wanted_ to help.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+"LET US BE FASHIONABLE."
+
+
+One feature of the hour was not only entirely new to the boys, but gave
+them a curious feeling, the name of which they did not understand.
+When the last one sat back in his chair, thereby admitting himself
+vanquished, Mrs. Roberts, looking at the young man who sat at the foot
+of the table, said:--
+
+"Will you return thanks?"
+
+What did that mean? To be sure they had heard of thanking people, but
+even _they_ were aware that it was an unusual thing for persons to
+demand thanks for themselves. They watched; behold, the young man bowed
+his head, and these were the words he spoke:--
+
+"Dear Saviour, we thank thee for the joys of this evening. We pray thee
+to teach us so to live that we may all meet some day in our Father's
+house. Amen."
+
+The boys looked at one another, then looked down at their plates. Their
+sole experience of prayer was connected with the South End Mission. To
+meet it at a supper-table was a revelation. Did the people who lived in
+grand houses, and had such wonderful things to eat, always pray at their
+supper-tables? This was the problem which they were turning over in
+their minds.
+
+Returning to the parlor, Gracie went at once to the piano. She had spent
+a good deal of Monday, settling the question of what to play, and had
+chosen the most sparkling music she could find. I am anxious to have it
+recorded, that, all uncultured as they were, these boys neither talked
+nor laughed during the music, but appeared at least to listen. It was
+Dirk Colton who sat nearest to the piano, and who listened in that
+indescribable way which always flatters a musician.
+
+"Do you like it?" Gracie asked, running off the final notes in a tinkle
+of melody.
+
+His dark face flushed a deep red.
+
+"I dunno," he said, with an awkward laugh; "it's queer sounding. I don't
+see how you make so many tinkles. Do you make all your fingers go at
+once on those black and white things?"
+
+"Not quite; but sometimes they have to dance about in a very lively
+fashion. I have to keep my wits at work, I assure you."
+
+"Is it hard to do?"
+
+"Not very, nowadays. When I first commenced, the practising was horrid;
+I hated it."
+
+"What made you do it, then?"
+
+"Oh, the same reason which makes people do a great many things that
+they don't like," she said, lightly; "I wanted the results. I knew if I
+worked at it steadily the time would come when I should not only enjoy
+it myself, but be able to give pleasure to other people. Why? Don't you
+ever do things that you don't particularly like?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and bestowed on her a very wise look.
+
+"Often enough," he said fiercely, and he thought of his drunken father.
+"But then I wouldn't if I could help it."
+
+"That would depend on whether you thought the thing would pay in the
+end, would it not?"
+
+Then, without waiting for an answer, she asked "What is your business?"
+
+"My business?" with a curiously puzzled air.
+
+"Yes; how do you spend your time?"
+
+"Hunting up something to eat," he said, with a grim smile; visions of
+his aimless loafing appearing before him as the only occupation he could
+be said to have. It had not occurred to him to try to mislead her, but
+she evidently did not understand.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, seriously, "so I suppose. Isn't it queer how
+busy men and women have to be day after day, and year after year, just
+getting themselves and others something to eat? Do you have other
+people to help get it for? Mother, for instance, and little brothers and
+sisters?"
+
+"I've got a mother," he said, "and a sister."
+
+"And that makes work easier, does it not? I always thought it would be
+stupid to work all the time just for one's self. But I meant, What do
+you work at in order to get the something to eat,--there are so many
+different ways?"
+
+"How do you know I work at all?"
+
+Dirk's voice was growing sullen; a consciousness that he would appear at
+a disadvantage in admitting himself an idler in a busy world was dawning
+upon him as an entirely new idea. At his question, Gracie turned on her
+music-stool and regarded him with surprise.
+
+"Why, of course you work," she said; "people all do."
+
+She was not acting a part. Her experience among poor people was limited
+to that outwardly respectable class who, however disreputable their
+conduct might be on Sabbath, had, nevertheless a Monday occupation with
+which they pretended to earn a living.
+
+Dirk shrugged his shoulders again.
+
+"Do they?" he said.
+
+Her evident ignorance of the world made him good-natured. She was not
+trying to preach to him, he decided. A thing which Dirk hated, in common
+with all persons of his class.
+
+But the lull in the music had started conversation in other parts of the
+room.
+
+Dirk heard young Ried's question:--
+
+"Mrs. Roberts, do you know of any young man looking for work? I heard of
+a good situation this afternoon. Oh, there are plenty of applicants, but
+the gentleman is an old friend of my brother-in-law, and I could speak a
+helpful word for somebody."
+
+"I have no one in mind," Mrs. Roberts said, and she glanced eagerly at
+the boys lounging in various attitudes in her easy chairs. Only three of
+them she knew made any pretence of earning their living. Did Alfred
+mean one of them? "Here is a chance for you, young gentlemen," she said,
+lightly, "who bids for a situation?"
+
+"What is the place?"
+
+It was Dirk Colson who asked the question. Ever since he could remember
+he was supposed to have been hunting for work, but I am not sure that he
+ever felt quite such a desire to find it as at that moment.
+
+"It is at Gray's, on Ninth Street, a good chance; but the one who
+secures it must have a fair knowledge of figures."
+
+"Oh, land!" said Dirk, sinking lower in his easy-chair. "No use in _me_
+asking about it."
+
+"Are figures your weak point?" Mrs. Roberts asked, smiling on him. "I
+can sympathize with you; I had to work harder over arithmetic than at
+any other study; but I learned to like it. Do you know I think it
+should be a favorite study with you? It is so nice to conquer an
+obstinate-looking row of figures, and fairly oblige the right result to
+appear. What did you find hardest about the study, Mr. Colson?"
+
+The others chuckled, but Dirk glowered at them fiercely.
+
+"There's nothin' to laugh about as I see," he said. "I didn't find
+nothin' hard, because I never had no chance to try. I never went to no
+school, nor had books, nor nothin'; now that's the truth, and I'm blamed
+if I ain't going to own it."
+
+"What a good thing it is that you are young." This was her animated
+answer. "There is a chance to make up for lost time. Mr. Ried, I have
+such a nice idea. I heard you and Dr. Everett speaking of the Literary
+Club the other night. Why cannot we have a literary club of our own? A
+reading circle, or something of that sort? Suppose we should meet once
+a week and read aloud something interesting, and have talks about it
+afterwards. Do you ever read aloud?"
+
+If Mrs. Roberts in all sincerity had not been one of the most
+simple-hearted, and in some respects ignorant little creatures on the
+face of the globe, she could never, with serious face, have addressed
+such a question to Nimble Dick.
+
+Young Ried could not have done it, for he realized the folly of
+supposing that Nimble Dick ever read anything. By just so much was Mrs.
+Roberts ahead of him. She supposed that these boys had their literature,
+and read it, and perhaps met somewhere on occasion and read together.
+This made it possible for her to ask surprising questions with honest
+face.
+
+"Bless me!" said Nimble Dick, startled into an upright posture; "oh, no,
+mum, never."
+
+And even Dirk Colson laughed at the expression on his face.
+
+"Still I think you would enjoy it, after a little practice, and I can't
+help fancying you would make a good reader."
+
+The boys were all laughing now, Nimble Dick with the rest.
+
+"You're in for an awful blunder there," he said, good-naturedly. "I'm
+like Black Dirk, never had no chances, and didn't do nothin' worth
+speakin' of with them that I had. Why, bless your body, mum! I can't
+even read to myself! I make the awfulest work you ever heard of spellin'
+out the show-bills. I have to get Black Dirk to help me; and him and me
+is a team."
+
+By this time Dirk's face had lost its smile, and his fierce eyes were
+flashing; but the hostess was serene.
+
+"That doesn't prove anything against my statement. I was speaking of
+what _could_ be, not necessarily of what was. Let us have a club. The
+more I think of the plan the more it pleases me. I'll tell you! The word
+'club' doesn't quite suit me. Let us be fashionable. Gracie, don't you
+know how fashionable it is becoming to have 'evenings' set apart for
+special occasions? Mr. Ried, you know Mrs. Judson's 'Tuesday evenings,'
+and Mrs. Symond's 'Friday evenings?' Very well, let us have our 'Monday
+evenings,' in which we will do all sorts of nice things; sometimes
+literary, sometimes musical, and sometimes--well, anything that we
+please. What do you say, gentlemen; shall we organize? Mr. Ried, will
+you give Monday evenings to us? Gracie, you are my guest, and cannot, of
+course, refuse."
+
+It was a novel idea, certainly. Even Alfred, while trying to heartily
+second her, was in doubt as to what she could hope to accomplish by it.
+As for the boys, not one of them promised to attend; but neither
+did they refuse. Mrs. Roberts presently left the subject, seeming to
+consider her point carried, and proposed a visit to the conservatory.
+
+I think it very doubtful whether the boy lives who does not like
+flowers. There are those who seem to consider it a mark of manliness to
+affect indifference to them; but these, as they grow older--become real
+men--generally lay this bit of folly aside. Then there are those, plenty
+of them, who really do not know that they care for flowers. The boys,
+ushered for the first time in their lives into the full bloom of a
+conservatory, were, most of them, of this latter stamp.
+
+What a scene of beauty it was! Great white callas, bending their
+graceful cups; great red and yellow roses, making the air rich with
+their breath; vines and mosses and ferns and small flowers in almost
+endless variety. Alfred and Gracie moved among the glories; the latter
+exhausting all her superlatives in honest delight, although she had
+visited the spot a dozen times that day; and Alfred, who had been less
+favored, was hardly less eager and responsive than she. But Mrs. Roberts
+watched the boys.
+
+It was all very well for those two to enjoy her flowers; of course they
+would. But what language would the silent, lovely things speak to her
+untutored boys? They said not a word; not one of them. They made no
+exclamations; they had no superlatives at command. But Stephen Crowley
+stooped before a lovely carnation, and smelled, and _smelled_, drawing
+in long breaths, as though he meant to take its fragrance all away with
+him; and Nimble Dick picked up the straying end of an ivy, and restored
+it to its support again, in a way that was not to be lost sight of by
+one who was looking for hearts; and Dirk Colson brushed back his matted
+hair and stood long before a great, pure lily, and looked down into its
+heart with an expression on his face that his teacher never forgot.
+
+She came over to him presently, standing beside him, saying nothing.
+Then at last she reached forth her hand and broke the lily from its
+stalk. He started, almost as if something had struck him.
+
+"What did you do that for?" And his voice was fierce.
+
+"I want you to take this for me to your sister--the girl with beautiful
+golden hair; I saw her one day, and I shall remember her hair and eyes.
+She will like this flower, and she will like you to bring it to her.
+
+"Gracie"--raising her voice--"gather some flowers will you, and make
+into bouquets? These young gentlemen will like to carry them to some
+one. There must be mothers at home who will enjoy bouquets brought by
+their sons."
+
+Over this gently-spoken sentence Nimble Dick laughed a hard, derisive
+laugh. It made the dark blood flow into black Dirk's indignant face.
+Even Alfred Ried lost self-control for a moment, and flashed a glance at
+him out of angry eyes. How could there be any hope of a boy who sneered
+at his mother? Yet you need not judge him too harshly.
+
+He thought of his mother, indeed, when he laughed; but alas! he thought
+of her as drunk. And he knew her scarcely at all, save as that word
+described her. How _could_ "mother" mean to him what it meant to Alfred
+Ried? what it meant even to Dirk Colson, whose mother, weak indeed in
+body and spirit, full of complaining words, oftentimes weakly bitter
+words to him, yet patched his clothes so long as she could get patches
+and thread, and would have washed them if she could have got soap, and
+been able to bring the water, and if her only tub hadn't been in pawn.
+Oh, yes, there are degrees in mothers.
+
+Mrs. Roberts, meantime, broke off blossoms with lavish hand, and made
+bouquets for Nimble Dick and for Dirk. He took the bright-hued ones with
+a smile, but the lily he held by itself, and still looked at it.
+
+They went away at last noisily; growing almost, if not quite, rough
+towards one another, at least, and directly they were out of the door,
+Nimble Dick gave a whoop that would have chilled the blood of nervous
+women. But matron and maiden looked at each other and laughed.
+
+"We have kept them pent up all the evening, and that is the escape-valve
+being raised to avoid a general explosion." This was Mrs. Roberts'
+explanation.
+
+They were quite alone. Alfred, on being invited in low tones to tarry
+and talk things over, had shaken his head, and replied, significantly:--
+
+"Thank you! no; I am one of them, and must stand on the same level."
+
+"You are right," Mrs. Roberts said, smilingly; "you must have been an
+apt pupil, my friend. That dear sister taught you a great deal."
+
+He held up the bouquet which she had made for him.
+
+"I am going to put it before Ester's picture," he said; "her work is
+going on."
+
+"Well," said Gracie, "it is over, and we lived through it. And they
+_did_ all come! I am amazed over that! And how they _did eat_! I suppose
+the next thing is to open all the windows and air out. Flossy Roberts,
+I'm afraid you are going insane. The idea of your inviting that horde
+here every Monday. What a parlor you would have! And they would breed
+a pestilence! They won't come, to be sure; but just imagine it if
+they should! I really think Mr. Roberts ought to send you home for Dr.
+Mitchell to look after. Well, Flossy, what next?"
+
+"Next, dear, you must pray. Pray as you never have done before, for
+the souls of these boys, and for the success of my 'Monday evenings.'
+Gracie, we are at work for immortal _souls_. Think of it! they _must_
+live forever. Shall they, through all eternity, keep dropping lower and
+lower, or shall they wear crowns?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+"SOMETHING'S HAPPENED!"
+
+
+Sallie Calkins sat in a common little rocking-chair and rocked; and
+while she rocked she sewed, setting neat stitches in a brown coat which
+was already patched and darned and was threadbare in many places. There
+was a look of deep content on Sallie's face. There were many reasons for
+it.
+
+Dr. Everett had that morning pronounced Mark's broken limb to be healing
+rapidly. He had also reported that Mark's place was to be held open for
+him by his employers. At this present moment, Mark, arrayed in a clean
+shirt, was resting on a very white sheet, his head reposing on a real
+feather pillow dressed in white and frilled. Over him was carefully
+spread another of those wonderful sheets, and to make the crowning
+glory, a white quilt, warm and soft, tucked him in on every side. How
+could Sallie but rejoice? All about the room there had been changes. A
+neat little table stood at the bed's side. It was covered with a white
+cloth, and a china bowl set thereon with a silver spoon beside it; a
+delicate goblet and china pitcher also, both carefully covered with a
+napkin. Did Mrs. Roberts know how homely Sallie gloried in the thinness
+of that china and the fineness of that napkin? How does it happen that
+some of the very poor seem born with such aesthetic tastes? Mrs. Roberts
+had intuitions, and was given to certain acts, concerning which she
+could not give to others satisfactory explanations. Therefore, she
+sometimes left china where others would have judged the plainest
+stoneware more prudent and sensible.
+
+A bit of bright carpet was spread at the side of the bed. A fire glowed
+in the neatly-brushed stove. A white muslin curtain hung at the window;
+and the chair in which Sallie rocked and sewed was new and gayly
+painted.
+
+There were other traces of Mrs. Roberts. You might not have noticed
+them, but it seemed to Sallie that her fingers had touched everywhere.
+Yet the lady herself thought that she had done very little. She had held
+her inclinations in check with severe judgment.
+
+The door opened softly, and a mass of golden hair, from out of which
+peered great eyes, peeped cautiously in.
+
+"Alone?" it said, nodding first toward the figure on the bed, and
+intimating that she was aware of Mark's presence, and did not mean him.
+
+"Yes," said Sallie, "come in; Mark's asleep, but you won't disturb
+him; he don't disturb easy; he sleeps just like a baby since the doctor
+stopped that pain in his knee. There's my new chair; just try it and see
+how nice it is."
+
+Saying which, she got herself out of the little rocker in haste, and
+pushed it toward her guest, meantime taking a plain wooden chair, also
+new, and adding:--
+
+"Did you ever hear of anybody like her before?"
+
+"Something's happened!" said Mart Colson, ignoring the reference to the
+mysterious pronoun,--her voice so full of a new and strange meaning
+that had Sallie been acquainted with the word she might have said it was
+filled with awe.
+
+As it was, she only exclaimed, "What?" in an intensely interested tone.
+
+"Why, look here! I brought it along to show you."
+
+Whereupon she produced from under her piece of torn shawl a large
+broken-nosed pitcher, a piece of brown paper carefully tied over the
+top. She untied the bit of calico string with fingers that shook from
+excitement.
+
+"Look in there!" she exclaimed at last, triumph in her tone, reaching
+forward the pitcher.
+
+Sallie looked, and drew in her breath with a long, expressive "O-h!"
+
+There, reposing in stately beauty, lay the great white lily with its
+golden bell.
+
+"Yes, I should think so!" Mart said, satisfied with the expression.
+"Did you ever see anything like that before? It ain't made of wax nor
+anything else that _folks_ ever made. It's alive! I felt of it. It looks
+like velvet and satin and all them lovely store things; but it doesn't
+feel so; it feels _alive_, and it _grew_. But, Sallie Calkins, if you
+should live a hundred years, and guess all the time, you never could
+guess where I got it. Sallie Calkins, if you'll believe it, Dirk gave it
+to me!"
+
+"Dirk?"
+
+"Yes, he did!"
+
+Who would have supposed Mart Colson's voice capable of such a triumphant
+ring?
+
+"You see the way of it was: Last night he didn't come for his supper
+at all, and that always scares me dreadful. I'm expecting something to
+happen, you know. Father, he didn't come either; for the matter of that,
+he hasn't come yet; and mother, she was awful tired, and hadn't had no
+dinner to speak of, and she just broke down and took on awful. Mother
+don't often cry, and it's good she don't, for she just goes into it with
+all her might when the time comes. It wasn't about father--she's used to
+him, you know, and don't expect nothing else; but Dirk drives her wild
+with what may happen to him. I was worried about him, too, but I was mad
+at him; it seemed too awful mean in him to stay away and scare mother.
+At last I got her to go to bed, and she was all tuckered out, and went
+to sleep.
+
+"Then I wrapped myself in the quilt and sat down to wait; but I got
+asleep, and I dreamed I saw _her_; she had wings to each side of her,
+and she flew over the tops of all those houses and made them turn white
+like the snow looks when it is coming down before it drops into the
+gutters. Wasn't that queer? Well, some noise woke me up. I was sitting
+flat on the floor by mother, and I sat up straight all of a tremble.
+And there was the old stool, and the brown pitcher on it, half-full of
+water, and this wonderful thing stood in it looking at me. And Dirk, he
+stood off the other side looking at it.
+
+"'It's for you, and she sent it.' That's what he said to me; and I
+wasn't real wide awake, you know. I suppose that's what made his voice
+sound so queer; and what do you think I said? I was thinking of my
+dream, and says I: 'Did she have her wings on?' Then Dirk made a queer
+noise; it was a laugh, but it sounded most like a cry. 'I guess so,'
+says he, and then he turned and went off to bed. And I can't get any
+more out of him; he is as snarly when I ask any questions as though he
+was mad about it all. If it hadn't been for this great white thing I
+might have thought this morning that it all belonged to the dream. But
+Dirk brought this home from somewhere, and put it in the pitcher, and
+give it to me his own self; that's sure."
+
+The story closed in triumph.
+
+"It is beautiful!" said Sallie, the brown jacket slipping to the floor,
+while she bent over the lily. "It is beautiful, all of it, and it looks
+just like her, and sounds like her, wings and all; of course she sent
+it."
+
+"And Dirk brought it." That part of the story Mart Colson did not
+forget.
+
+Sometimes it seems to me a pity that hearts are not laid bare to the
+gaze of others. What, for instance, might not this little incident have
+done for Dirk Colson had he known how the starved heart of his sister
+fed on the thought that he brought her the flower?
+
+Still, on the other hand, I don't know what the effect would have been
+on Mart had she known what a tremendous amount of courage it had taken
+to present the flower to her. A dozen times on the way home had Dirk
+been on the point of consigning it to the gutter. _He_ carry home a
+flower! If it had been a loaf of bread he thought it would be more
+consistent. Someway he recognized a fine sarcasm in the thought that
+he, who had never in his life contributed towards the necessities of the
+family, should carry to that dreary home a flower! Yet the fair lily did
+its work well during that long walk from East Fifty-fifth Street to the
+shadow of the alley. It made Dirk Colson tell it fiercely that he hated
+himself; that he was a brute and a loafer,--a blot on the earth, and
+ought not to live. Why didn't he go to work? Why didn't he have things
+to bring home to Mart every little while, as Mark Calkins did to Sallie?
+Hadn't he seen Mark, only a few evenings before he was hurt, with a pair
+of girl's shoes strung over his shoulder, and heard him whistle as he
+ran, two steps at a time, up the rickety stairs? What would Mart think
+if he should bring her home a pair of shoes? What would she think of
+his bringing her a flower? She would sneer, of course: and, in the mood
+which then possessed him, Dirk said angrily that she had a right to
+sneer, and would be a fool not to; and yet he hated the thought of it.
+There was nothing in life that Dirk hated more than sneers; and he had
+been fed on them ever since he could remember.
+
+He was altogether unprepared for the reception which the lily received.
+That suggestion about wings, which seemed so apt, had brought the
+"queer" sound to his voice that Mart had noticed. If only she had
+understood, and not spoiled, next morning, the effect of her words.
+
+In the prosaic daylight, the illusion of "wings" being banished, she was
+bent on knowing how Dirk came into possession of the lily.
+
+"Who sent it, Dirk? I don't believe anybody told you to give it to me.
+Who would care about _my_ having a flower? Where did you get it?"
+
+"Where do you s'pose?" Dirk's voice was ominously gruff. It is a painful
+truth that by daylight he was ashamed of his part of the transaction.
+"I told you she sent it. It's noways likely that I'd take the trouble to
+make up a lie about that weed. How do I know what she wanted you to have
+it for? Maybe she thought it matched your looks."
+
+There was a bitter sneer in Dirk's voice, yet all the time he heard the
+sweet, low voice saying, "That girl with the beautiful golden hair."
+Suppose he should tell Mart that? Why not? Let me tell you that Dirk
+Colson would not have repeated that sentence for the world! And yet he
+did not know why.
+
+Mart's face burned red under his sneer.
+
+"How am I to know who 'she' is?" she said, in bitter scorn. "Some of
+your bar-room beauties, for whom you dance and whistle, I suppose. You
+can tell her I would rather have my shawl out of pawn, or some shoes for
+my feet, enough sight. What do I care for a great flower mocking at me?"
+
+"Pitch it into the fire, then; and it will be many a long day before I
+bring you anything else," said Dirk, pushing himself angrily back from
+the table, where he had been eating bread dipped in a choice bit of pork
+fat.
+
+"There isn't a bit of danger of my doing that," she called after him,
+mockingly. "There isn't a spark of fire, nor likely to be to-day, unless
+some of your admirers send me a shovel of coal. Mercy knows, I wish they
+would."
+
+He mercifully lost part of this sentence, for the reason that before it
+was concluded he was moving with long, angry strides up the alley.
+
+And then Mart took the broken-nosed pitcher away into the furthermost
+corner, although she was alone in the room, and laid her face against
+the cool, pure lily, and wept into it great burning tears. Poor,
+ignorant soul! She wanted, oh, how she _wanted_ Dirk to be brave and
+good like Mark Calkins--her one type of manhood. Yet she did not know
+that she was crushing out the germ which might have grown in his
+heart. True, she knew herself to be very different from Sallie, but the
+thought, poor soul, that that was because Mark was so different from
+Dirk.
+
+Isn't it a pity that the sweet-faced lily could not have told its tender
+story to both these ignorant ones?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+"WHAT MADE HER DIFFERENT?"
+
+
+"I have heard a good deal about your sister that has interested me. Do
+you like to talk of her?"
+
+This was the question which Gracie Dennis asked of young Ried as he
+stood beside her at the piano. She had been playing, and had come to
+the music alcove for the purpose of turning her music; but now she was
+touching sweet chords here and there aimlessly, and waiting for his
+answer.
+
+At the further end of the parlor Mrs. Roberts was entertaining a caller;
+but the distance between them was so great that, in effect, the young
+people were alone.
+
+"I like nothing better than to talk of her." Mr. Ried said, with
+animation; "but I don't know so much about her as I wish I did. She went
+away when I was quite young. I used to say 'she died,' but since I have
+awakened to see her cherished plans being carried on all around me I
+cannot think of her as dead."
+
+"That is what I want to talk about,--her work, or her plans for work.
+What made her so different from other people, Mr. Ried. _Wasn't_ she
+different?"
+
+The young man regarded the question thoughtfully before answering.
+
+"Not from all the people," he said at last; "but certainly very
+different from some. I used to think that all Christians were like her,
+of course; then, when I saw my mistake, I went to the other extreme, and
+thought there were none like her on earth. I have discovered that the
+medium position is the correct one."
+
+"But what I want to know is, what _made_ her different? It wasn't her
+age. Mrs. Roberts thinks she was young?"
+
+"She was hardly nineteen when she died. Oh, no, it wasn't age; she
+told me that she used to be very different. She was a Christian from
+childhood, but she said that she was ashamed to claim the name. There
+was nothing Christlike about her; still she was a member of the Church.
+As I remember her, and as I look at other people, my judgment is that,
+in her early Christian life, she was much like most of the Christians
+with whom you and I are familiar."
+
+"And what made her different? Was it--that is--do you think it was
+because she was to die so soon that she had a special experience?"
+
+"Not at all," he said, promptly; "it was before she realized anything
+about her condition that the great change took place in her. My
+brother-in-law says that she supposed herself to be in perfect health at
+the time when she was most marked in her Christian life."
+
+"Ah! but you don't understand; I mean more than that. It is difficult to
+tell what I mean; I mean--but you know, of course, _God_ knew that she
+was soon to go to heaven. I thought, perhaps, he gave her a special
+experience on that account."
+
+"No; oh, no," he said, speaking with great earnestness. "Ester
+was particularly anxious that no one should suppose her experience
+exceptional. Little fellow though I was, it seemed to be her desire that
+I should fully understand this. Don't let anybody make you think that
+because you are a little boy you must be a sort of half-way Christian,'
+she used to say, and her eyes would glow with feeling. 'I tried that way
+for years,' she said, 'and I want you to understand that it is not only
+sinful, but there is not a particle of happiness to be gotten out of
+it--not a particle; and I would give almost nothing for what such a
+Christian can accomplish. The harm one does, more than overbalances all
+effort for Christ.' I think, perhaps, she felt more deeply on that than
+on almost any subject; and it was because she thought she had wasted so
+many years."
+
+"Then do you think that there is, or rather that there should be, no
+difference in Christians? Have all the same work to do?"
+
+"Not that, quite, of course,--or, I don't know, either. Isn't it all
+different forms of the Master's work. The children of the home may
+have each a different task, but each is needed to make the home what
+it should be, and each worker needs the same spirit of love and
+unselfishness to enable him to do his part. It isn't a perfect
+illustration, Miss Dennis. I'm not skillful in that direction; but _I_
+know what I mean, and that is a comfort."
+
+"And I know what you mean," Gracie said, not joining in his laugh; "but
+I am not sure that I believe it. Why, Mr. Ried, that would make a very
+solemn thing of living."
+
+"Well, did you suppose it was other than solemn? I'm sure it makes a
+triumphant thing of it, too; and without it we are only a lot of wax
+figures, dancing to pass the time away."
+
+"But don't you really think that people have a right to have _any_ nice
+times?"
+
+"Miss Dennis, did you ever see any person who had nicer times than your
+friend, Mrs. Roberts?"
+
+"Well, Flossy is peculiar; her tastes all seem to lie in this direction;
+though once they did not, I admit. Papa used to think that she had
+no talent for anything but dancing. Something changed Flossy's entire
+character. No one who knew her two years ago could possibly deny that."
+
+"She will serve as an illustration, then, to explain my meaning. I
+believe, Miss Dennis, that religion should have sufficient power over
+us to change all our tastes and plans in life, fitting them to the
+Saviour's use."
+
+"But what would such a rule as that do with most of the Christians of
+your acquaintance?"
+
+"Ah! I am old and experienced enough to warn you not to make shipwreck
+of your happiness on that shoal. I hovered around it, and vexed my soul
+over the whole bewildering question until I suddenly discovered that I
+was held absolutely responsible only for my own soul, and that the Lord
+would look after his own."
+
+For a time there was no answer to this.
+
+Gracie let her fingers wander with apparent aimlessness over the keys,
+drawing out soft, sweet strains. Suddenly she said:--
+
+"What do you expect Flossy will accomplish with that last scheme of
+hers? I ought to beg her pardon for the familiar name, but I have known
+her ever since I was a child. Don't you think her attempts for those
+boys rather hopeless?"
+
+Instantly the young man's eyes filled with tears, and when he spoke his
+voice indicated deep emotion.
+
+"I can hardly tell you how I feel about those boys. I have been anxious
+for them so long and felt so hopeless. Do you remember how Elijah sat
+under a juniper tree, discouraged, and said that he was the only one who
+had not bowed the knee to Baal, and the Lord told him he was
+mistaken, that there were five thousand others? It sounds ridiculously
+egotistical, but I have felt at times something like that; as though I
+was the only one who cared whether the poor fellows went to destruction
+or not. But since I have met Mrs. Roberts, and seen how intense she is
+and single-hearted, and since through her I have met Dr. Everett, and
+seen how they are trying to work at the same problem, and since I have
+come to know how Mr. Roberts is at work all the time for young men; and,
+above all, since that wonderful evening here last Monday, when I saw how
+two gifted ladies understood the art of turning their accomplishments
+to account, in order to take those poor fellows captive for Christ, I
+discovered that there were ways of solving this problem about which
+I had known nothing, and people to carry it through. It was simply
+glorious in you to give those fellows such music as you did, and to
+accomplish by it what you did. My life has been narrow, Miss Dennis; I
+never saw the piano used for Christ before."
+
+Gracie looked down at the keys, her face aglow. It was a new experience,
+this being classed among the Christian workers of the world; making her
+music for other purposes than to amuse the gay friends who chanced to
+gather around her. She made the keys speak loudly for a few minutes,
+then softening them, said:--
+
+"You must not class me with Flossy, Mr. Ried. I only did what she wanted
+done. I am not in the least like her, unselfish and gentle and all
+that."
+
+But his reply, spoken low, was pleasant to her ears:--
+
+"'By their fruits ye shall know them.'"
+
+He evidently looked upon her as a worker. She could not help feeling
+that it was pleasant to be so classed. What an intense young man he
+was! Not in the least like those with whom she had hitherto been most
+familiar.
+
+There was another voice in the front parlor--a strong, vigorous voice
+that carried a sense of power with it.
+
+"Ah!" said Ried, his eyes bright, his face eager; "that is Dr. Everett.
+Just study him if you want another type of the sort of Christian about
+whom we have been talking; the grandest man!"
+
+Gracie, shielded by the distance, turned on her stool and studied him.
+Certainly he did not look much as though he were appointed for early
+death. What a splendid physique it was!
+
+And how thoroughly wide awake and interested he was in the subject under
+discussion. Bits of the talk floated back to the two at the piano.
+
+"Oh, he is young," Dr. Everett was saying; "I hope for returned vigor in
+time; but there must be long weeks of patience before he will be ready
+for his old employment."
+
+"Do you know of whom he is speaking?" Gracie asked.
+
+"I fancy it is that Calkins boy, the one with the broken limb. He is
+deeply interested in the poor fellow, and is trying to plan employment
+of some less wearing sort for him, I believe. Dr. Everett is always
+intensely interested in somebody."
+
+"Is it always the very poor?"
+
+Alfred laughed.
+
+"Not always. I know several quite well-to-do fellows in whom he keeps
+a careful oversight; but he is grandly interested in the poor. He is
+taking rank as one of the most successful physicians in the city, and,
+of course, he is pressed for time; yet he is so continually at the call
+of the poor that people begin to speak of him as the poor man's doctor.
+He told me he was proud of that title."
+
+At this point the musicians were appealed to to come to the front
+parlor, and Gracie had opportunity for a nearer study of the man whom
+she could not help but admire. He was not likely to suffer from a nearer
+view; at least, not while Gracie was in the mood that then possessed
+her. He greeted her cordially, and at once brought her into the
+conversation by appealing to her for a decision, seeming to take it for
+granted that she was of the same spirit with himself.
+
+This young lady was taking lessons of life that were designed to be
+helpful to her if she would but let them. A thoroughly well-educated and
+cultured gentleman, well fitted to take high rank in society, not in the
+ministry, and yet thoroughly absorbed in what she had hitherto almost
+unconsciously set down as ministers' work was a mystery to her.
+Moreover, for the second time that evening, she felt a curious sense of
+satisfaction in being classed among the energetic workers of the
+world. The pretty school-girl, who had lived all her young life in a
+neighborhood where she was "Gracie Dennis," looked up to, indeed, by
+her set, and having a decided influence of her own, yet felt it to be a
+novel experience to hear herself addressed in a clear, firm voice after
+this manner:--
+
+"Miss Dennis, what means would you advise for interesting a company of
+young girls in reading, regularly, books which would be of use to them?
+Of course, I speak of a class of girls who have done no reading of any
+account heretofore, and who have no knowledge in the matter."
+
+"It is something about which I have not thought at all," said Gracie,
+her pretty face all in a flush. "But I should suppose the way would be
+to take one girl at a time, and study her, to find what would be likely
+to interest and help _her_, and also to get such an influence over her
+that she would read what I wanted her to."
+
+"First catch your hare, eh? Good!" said the doctor, with an approving
+glance towards Mrs. Roberts. "The longer I live the more convinced am
+I that individual effort is what accomplishes the great things in this
+world."
+
+There was more talk about this and kindred matters; and Gracie found
+herself drawn out, and her interest excited on themes about which she
+had supposed she knew nothing.
+
+Then occurred an interruption,--a ringing of the door-bell.
+
+"For Miss Dennis," said the messenger; but she handed the card to Mrs.
+Roberts.
+
+There was just a moment of hesitation, while that lady apparently
+studied the name, then she said, composedly:--
+
+"This is Professor Ellis, Gracie. Do you wish to receive him this
+evening?"
+
+Since I have known Mrs. Roberts well, I have studied her innocently
+sincere manner, with not a little curiosity as to the probable effect on
+the world, suppose it were possible for others to adopt her method. The
+actual practical effect with her is that she succeeds often in wisely
+deceiving, while intending to be perfectly sincere. For instance, her
+question to Gracie after a moment of hesitation, during which she asked
+herself, "What ought I to do?" and immediately answered herself, "There
+is nothing for me to do, but to be perfectly straight-forward."
+
+Her question was intended to say to Gracie: "I trust you. What your
+father has directed you to do, I feel sure you will obey." But it said
+different things from that to Gracie. Ever since she had been told that
+she might make her old acquaintance, Flossy, a visit, this highly-strung
+young lady had been suspicious that this was a device of her stepmother
+to get pleasantly rid of her for a few weeks. She surmised that a very
+carefully elaborate account of her sins had been written out by this
+same stepmother for the benefit of her young hostess, and that special
+directions had been given for guarding her from the wolf, Professor
+Ellis. She would have spoiled the entire scheme by haughtily refusing to
+leave home had not the innocent delight of a young girl over the thought
+of visiting a beautiful strange city gotten the better of her pride. The
+gently-put question of her hostess disarmed a whole nest of suspicions.
+It was hardly possible that it had been hinted to Flossy that her guest
+might attempt to elope with this man, else she would not with serene
+face be asking whether it was her wish to receive him.
+
+"If you please," she made haste to answer, her cheeks glowing the while,
+and Mrs. Roberts gave instant direction that the gentleman be shown to
+the parlor.
+
+There were several new lessons set for Miss Gracie Dennis to learn that
+evening. One was that Professor Ellis, with his faultless dress and
+excessive politeness, his finished bows and smiles, that would have done
+credit to any ball-room in the land, his accurate knowledge of all the
+printed rules of etiquette, yet in Mrs. Roberts' parlor, contrasted with
+Dr. Everett, and even with young Ried, the dry-goods clerk, appeared at
+a disadvantage.
+
+She was slow in learning the lesson: on that first evening she simply
+stared at it in bewilderment. What did it mean? There was an attempt to
+draw the professor into the circle, to continue the conversation that
+had been so animated and interesting before his entrance. The effect
+was much like that produced in striking a discordant note in a hitherto
+faultless piece of music. Young men out of business needing help,
+needing an encouraging word, an out-stretched hand! Professor Ellis had
+words, and hands, but he might have been without either for all the help
+they gave him in responding to efforts like these. Books to help uplift
+the young, to give them high ideas of life, to enthuse them with
+desires to live for a purpose! Truly he could only stare blankly at the
+suggestion. What did he know of books written for such purposes? Yet
+Gracie had supposed him to be literary in his tastes and pursuits.
+Certainly he read French? Yes, French novels! He was quite familiar with
+some of such a character that, had Gracie been a good French scholar and
+ever likely to come in contact with a copy of them, he would not have
+dared to mention their names in her presence. More than once of late had
+the stepmother wished that her young daughter understood the language
+well enough to be aware that the man whom she admired used frequently
+smooth-sounding French oaths. But alas for Gracie, when he had so
+poisoned her mother's influence over this dangerously pretty girl, that
+she would have believed his word at any time rather than that mother's.
+Well, he read other than French novels; Charles Reade, for instance, and
+some of the more recent authors fashionable in certain circles. It is
+true that Gracie was not acquainted with them, that her father would not
+allow a copy of their books to come freely into his home, and Gracie
+was much too honorable to read them in private. But it is also true that
+while professing to admire this trait in her, as charming in a young
+daughter, the professor had also, pityingly and gently, told this young
+daughter that these things were her father's concessions to the narrow
+age and trammelled profession to which he belonged; that the fact was,
+free thought was discouraged, because there was that in every church
+which would not bear its light; that her wise father was one of a
+hundred in recognizing this, and trying to shield her while she was
+young.
+
+You are also to remember that she _was_ young, and therefore forgive her
+that she did not detect the contradictory sophistry in the professor's
+words. He really understood how to sugar-coat poison as well as any man
+of his stamp could.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+"HERE WAS HIS OPPORTUNITY."
+
+
+But the question which would keep forcing itself on Gracie Dennis was
+this: "If he really knows of nice books, full of 'the beautiful' and
+'the ennobling,' that would enlighten the race, as he has often told
+me, why doesn't he mention some of them now? There is no minister here
+'trammelled by long years of narrowing education.' How does he know but
+that these people are as 'advanced' in their ideas as he is himself?"
+
+I do not mean that she was conscious of thinking these thoughts, but
+that they hovered on the edge, as it were, of her mind, making her
+feel ill at ease. Dr. Everett, on his part, seemed courteously bent on
+securing an expression of the professor's opinion about matters of which
+he either could not, or would not, talk. When at last the disturbed
+gentleman resolved to violate what Gracie was sure was a law of good
+breeding, and address her in French, what with her embarrassment lest
+others should understand, and her own marked ignorance of the language,
+she found great difficulty in making a free translation. "Upon my word,
+I wish you understood French, or some other tongue, so that we could
+escape from this boredom. Does the poor little prisoner have much of
+this to endure? Cannot we escape to the music-room, and talk things
+over?"
+
+Gracie cast a frightened glance about her to see if there were others
+who understood better than herself this sentence, which, for aught she
+knew, might contain something startling. But Alfred was busily engaged
+in looking up the name of a book which he had vainly tried to recall,
+and Dr. Everett was apparently serenely oblivious to any language but
+his mother-tongue. Very soon after this Gracie managed to escape
+with her caller to the music alcove; thus much of the French she had
+understood, and at least Professor Ellis could play; which fact she
+resolved that the people in the front parlor should speedily understand.
+Ah, but he could play! and herein lay one of his strong fascinations
+for the music-loving girl. For a time the most ravishing strains rolled
+through the parlor hushing into rapt attention the group gathered there,
+who had just been reinforced by the coming of Mr. Roberts. By degrees
+the strains grew fainter and fainter, and at last ceased altogether, as
+the professor, still on the music-stool, bent over Gracie, seated in a
+low chair, and apparently found fluent speech at last.
+
+Mrs. Roberts, meantime, was ill at ease. What would Dr. Dennis and
+Marion say, could they have a peep at this moment into her back parlor?
+Was she being faithful to her trust? Yet what was there she could do?
+She tried to sustain her part in the conversation, but her troubled
+gaze, constantly wandering elsewhere, betrayed her. Dr. Everett's keen
+eyes were upon her.
+
+"Are you particularly interested in that man?" he asked, abruptly.
+
+Mrs. Roberts smiled faintly.
+
+"I am particularly interested in that girl," she said.
+
+"How do you like her present companionship?"
+
+"Not at all," she answered, quickly.
+
+Whereupon Mr. Roberts began to question.
+
+"May I know, doctor, whether you have any other reason than that of
+intuition for asking the question?"
+
+"Possibly not," said the doctor, guardedly. "It maybe a case of mistaken
+identity. Mrs. Roberts, would you like to have me investigate something
+that may be to his disadvantage?"
+
+Mrs. Roberts had a prompt answer ready:--
+
+"There are reasons why it is specially important that such an
+investigation should be made and reported to me. May I commission you?"
+
+The doctor bowed; and the subject of Professor Ellis was immediately
+dropped.
+
+During the following week certain innovations took place in Mrs. Roberts
+well-ordered household. At the end of the conservatory was a long,
+bright, and hitherto unfurnished room; it had been designed as a sort
+of second conservatory, whenever the beauties of that department should
+outgrow their present bounds, but meantime other plants had taken root
+and blossomed in the mistress' heart. Early in this week the unused room
+had been opened and cleaned; then began to arrive packages of various
+shapes and sizes; a roll of carpeting, and two young men from the
+carpet store; and there followed soon after the sound of hammering.
+Furniture-wagons halted before the door, leaving their burdens. Men and
+women flitted to and fro, busy and important.
+
+It was Saturday night before Mr. Roberts and his young clerk were
+invited in to admire and criticise the new room. Mr. Roberts, at least,
+was prepared to appreciate its transformation.
+
+The floor was covered with a heavy carpet in lovely shades of mossy
+green, and easy chairs and couches in tints that either matched or made
+delightful contrasts with the carpet abounded. The walls were hung with
+pictures and charts and maps. A study-table occupied the centre of
+the room--one of those charming tables, full of mysterious drawers
+and unexpected corners; paper and pens and inks in various colors were
+disposed about this table in delightful profusion.
+
+Other tables, plenty of them, small and neat, each of a different shape
+or design, were stationed at intervals, in convenient proximity to
+comfortable chairs. Nothing could be further removed from one's idea of
+a school-room than was that long, beautiful parlor; yet when you thought
+of it, and took a second, deliberate survey, nothing that could have
+contributed to the enjoyment of pupils was missing. A small cabinet
+organ occupied an alcove, and music-books of various grades were strewn
+over it. Toward this spot Mrs. Roberts smiled significantly as her eye
+caught Alfred Ried's, and she said:--
+
+"I have visions of sacred Sabbath evening half-hours, connected with
+this corner, one of these days; meantime, is this a pleasant room for
+our Monday evenings?"
+
+But Alfred could not answer her; his head was turned away, and there
+was a suspicious lump in his throat, that made him know better than
+to attempt speech. He was standing at that moment under one of the
+wall-texts that the gaslight illumined until it glowed, and the words
+stood out with startling clearness:--
+
+"Let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober."
+
+His sister's text; one that, perhaps more than any other, was on her
+lips when she talked with him; one that hung at her coffin's head when
+he, a little boy, stood beside the coffin and looked down at her face,
+and looked up at that text, and took a mental photograph of both to live
+in his heart forever.
+
+"This is your special chair," Mrs. Roberts said, smiling up at him; and
+he understood her,--here was his opportunity to live out that text for
+his sister. Wouldn't he try!
+
+"Well," said Gracie, drawing a long breath, "as a study it is certainly
+a success. One can easily see, Flossy, why you were born with the
+ability to tell at a glance what colors harmonized, and just where
+things fitted in. I can't imagine anything prettier than this, and I
+cannot imagine what you are going to do with it."
+
+Whereupon they sat down to talk that important question over: what they
+were going to try to do. Sometimes I have wondered whether Ester, from
+her beautiful home, could look down on it all, and whether she smiled
+over the fact that her work was doing so much more than she had planned?
+She had roused in her little brother an ambition that had grown with his
+years, and that had helped to hold him away from many temptations: so
+much, doubtless, she had foreseen; but what a blessed thing it was that
+she had touched, in those long ago years, influences which had drawn her
+brother, in his young and perilous manhood, into intimate relations with
+such people as Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, so that they sat down familiarly to
+talk over mutual interests! But for Ester's words, spoken long ago, but
+for her strong desires transmitted to him, he might have sat with a very
+different circle, and talked over widely different schemes. On the edge
+of this circle Gracie Dennis hovered. She could not but be interested in
+their talk, for she was a Christian, and her father was a Christian, and
+she had, all her life breathed in the atmosphere of a Christian home.
+
+At the same time she could but imagine some of their ideas wild ones,
+for she had never been associated with people who widely overstepped the
+conventional ways of doing things; and she had, of late, been much with
+Professor Ellis who had a sort of gentlemanly sneer for every phase of
+Christian work, and, so far as could be discovered, believed in nothing.
+He had not been outspoken, it is true, and herein lay one of the
+dangers. He was too skillful to be outspoken; but the subtle poison had
+been working, and although Gracie could not help being interested in
+those queer boys, she could not help thinking Flossy's whole scheme
+exceedingly visionary, and expected it to come to grief. The puzzling
+question was, why did Mr. Roberts, being a keen-sighted man, permit it
+all! Or was he so much in love with Flossy that he could not bear to
+thwart even her wildest flights? It was strange, too, to see a young man
+like Alfred Ried so absorbed; his sister must have had wonderful power
+over him, Gracie thought. She went back to his sister's influence,
+always, in trying to explain the matter, and never gave a thought to
+Christ's influence. Meantime she listened to the various plans proposed
+for the first Monday evening, and was sufficiently interested to gather
+her pretty face in a frown when the distant peal from the door-bell
+sounded through the house.
+
+"What a pity to be interrupted by a caller!" she exclaimed. "This room
+is so much nicer than the parlor. Flossy, don't you hope it is some one
+to see Mr. Roberts on business?"
+
+"No," said Mrs. Roberts, shaking her head, with a smile, "I feel in
+special need of Mr. Roberts just now. Evan, I really think we must be
+excused to callers for this one evening; there are so many things to
+arrange."
+
+"Let us wait and see," answered Mr. Roberts "perhaps the Lord sent the
+caller here to help us, or to be helped."
+
+At that moment came the card.
+
+"Oh, it is Dr. Everett!" was Mrs. Roberts' exclamation. "Let us have him
+come directly here. Evan, please go and escort him. You were right,--the
+Lord has sent him to help us. I don't know how, I'm sure; but he is just
+the man to help everywhere."
+
+And the circle instantly widened itself to receive Dr. Everett.
+
+It took almost no time to speak the commonplace of the occasion, and
+get back at once to the business of the hour. It was evident that Dr.
+Everett needed no lengthy explanations, and there was apparently nothing
+bewildering to his mind in the plan. True, it was new to him, but he
+seemed to spring at once to the centre of their thoughts. His eyes
+glowed for a moment, and he said with peculiar emphasis:--
+
+"Ried, when the son of man cometh, he will surely find _some_ faith on
+the earth!"
+
+Then he gave himself to intensest listening and questioning, and
+presently followed his questions with suggestions which showed that
+unconventional ways of working were not altogether new to him.
+
+As for Gracie, she had as much as she could do to listen intelligently;
+she almost caught her breath over the rapidity with which the talkers
+moved from one scheme to another. All the time there was a curious
+process of comparison between this man and Professor Ellis going on in
+her mind. Not that she wished to compare the two! She told herself that
+it was absurd to do so; none the less she did it. For instance,
+she reminded herself that she had mentally assented promptly to the
+suggestion of inviting the doctor to this room to talk this strange
+scheme over; she had recognized the fitness of the act. But suppose
+Professor Ellis should call, would it not be simply absurd to think of
+explaining to him the uses of this unique room? Who would for a moment
+think of suggesting his name as a helper?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I do not know how to describe to you the appearance of that room on
+Monday evening when the boys were in it. I do not know whether the sight
+to you would have been pitiful or ludicrous. How can I tell--not knowing
+you? There was a dreadful incongruity between the soiled, ragged clothes
+and matted hair and unwashed hands and the exquisite purity which
+prevailed around them. Of course you could have seen that, but the
+all-important question, the answer to which would have stamped your
+place in the world's workshop, would have been, Do you see any further
+than that? and seeing further--which way? Do you see the possibilities,
+or the certainties of failure? Oh, no, I am wrong; it would take more
+than that to tell where you belong. Dr. Everett saw the possibilities
+and gloried in them. Gracie Dennis thought she saw the certainty of
+failure, and was sorry for it. But Professor Ellis would have seen the
+certainty of failure, and would have met it with a sneer, if he had not
+been too indifferent even for that. As for Mrs. Roberts, did she, or did
+she not, represent a different and higher type than any of the others?
+She thought not much about either success or failure, but pushed
+steadily forward the plan that she believed she had gotten on her knees,
+born of the Spirit. If it really were of God, nothing could make it
+fail; but if she mistook, and the plan was only hers, mere failure in
+that direction would signify nothing; she would have but to try again.
+Something of this she felt, but did not reason out, for she was no
+logician.
+
+What the boys saw was a great, splendid room, the like of which they had
+never seen before, for they recognized, without being able to explain,
+the difference between it and the parlors, and felt freer in it. They
+all came, and they looked not one whit better than on the Monday evening
+before. Over this fact Gracie Dennis, with all her public scoffing, was,
+in private, a little disappointed. It is true she had not expected to
+see them again; but if they came, she thought it possible that they
+might have been tempted to appear with clean hands and faces. Possibly
+some were so tempted, and but for the difficulties in the way, might
+really have tried for this. But Gracie was not sufficiently enlightened
+to dream of difficulties in the way of simply washing one's face and
+hands.
+
+During the Saturday evening conference it had been decided that Mr.
+Roberts must make acquaintance with his guests. It would never do to
+have them come familiarly to his house, and he not be able to recognize
+them on the streets. Several plans were suggested for introducing him
+skilfully to them, but he disapproved of them all.
+
+"No," he said, "I'll tell you what we'll do. I will introduce myself.
+You may receive them, Flossy, and then retire for a few minutes,
+and I'll let myself in by the conservatory passage, and make myself
+acquainted to the best of my abilities. In ten minutes, Flossy, I'll
+give you leave to return. As for the rest of you, don't dare to venture
+in until I have made good my claim as the head of the house. I am
+jealous of you, perhaps."
+
+To this plan Mrs. Roberts readily assented, but the young clerk
+looked doubtful. In common with the rest of his employees, he stood in
+wholesome awe of the keen-eyed, thorough business man, who seemed to
+know, as by a sort of instinct, when anything in any department of
+the great store was not moving according to rule. His knowledge of Mr.
+Roberts, outside of the store, was limited, and he expected to find the
+boys, if not frightened, so awed that they would resolve never to be
+caught inside that room again.
+
+However, he of course only looked his fears. He was too much afraid of
+the great merchant to express them, and it had been understood, when
+they separated, that this plan was to be carried out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+"I WONDER WHAT THEY'RE ALL AFTER!"
+
+
+In the library waited Gracie and Mr. Ried, while Mrs. Roberts went
+merrily to see whether the boys or their host had proved the stronger.
+
+"I don't believe this part of the programme will work," Alfred said,
+confidently, the moment the door closed after Mrs. Roberts. "Those
+fellows will all be afraid of Mr. Roberts, and we shall lose what little
+hold we have on them."
+
+"They don't look to me as though it ever occurred to them to be afraid
+of anything," Gracie said; but Alfred Ried, who had studied deeper into
+this problem of the different classes of society, was ready with his
+answer.
+
+"Yes they are; they can be awed, and made to feel uncomfortable to the
+degree that they will resolve not to appear in that region again.
+One cannot judge from their behavior in Sabbath-school. Some way they
+recognize a mission school as being in a sense their property, and
+behave accordingly; but in a man's own house, surrounded by things of
+which they do not even know the name, he has them at a disadvantage, and
+can easily rouse within them the feeling that they are 'trapped.' Than
+which there is nothing those fellows dread so much, I believe."
+
+"But they were not afraid of Flossy last week, even surrounded by the
+elegances of her parlors and dining-room."
+
+"Ah!" he said, his eyes alight, "she has a wisdom born of God, I think,
+for managing these and all other concerns. She is unlike everybody
+else."
+
+Whereupon Gracie Dennis laughed; not a disagreeable laugh, but there
+came to her just then a sense of the strangeness of thinking that pretty
+Flossy Shipley, whom she had known all her life, and half-scorned from
+the heights of her childhood because she was a silly little thing, who
+could not do her problems in class, should have a wisdom unlike any
+others. Yet, almost immediately her laugh was stayed, because the change
+in Flossy was so great that she, too, recognized it as born of God.
+Sometimes it came with force to this proud young girl that if God could
+do so much for Flossy, what might he not be willing to do with those
+whom he had made intellectually her superior, if they were but ready to
+be led?
+
+The young man, who was studying her, watched the grave look deepen on
+her face, and wondered at its source. What a pretty face it was. Oh,
+much more than pretty; there was great strength in it and sweetness,
+too, of a certain sort, but he could not help comparing the sort with
+that in some other faces, and he wondered over the difference. This
+young lady was a Christian. Why should her Christian experience stamp
+her with such a different expression from that which others wore? He
+always finished this sort of sentence with a blank space first, as
+though he did not choose to have himself tell himself any names. Yet he
+spoke a name forcibly enough, still gazing earnestly at Gracie.
+
+"Did you ever meet Miss Joy Saunders?"
+
+Gracie turned toward him a laughing face.
+
+"No, but we are very anxious to, Flossy and I. We have both been told
+that we ought to know her, and told so earnestly that we really think we
+ought. Who is she? Is she, too, unlike anybody else?"
+
+"Very," he said, promptly. "I know her very little; she is the daughter
+of our landlady; I meet her in the hall on rare occasions, and sometimes
+catch glimpses of her just vanishing from some room as I enter; but as
+for being acquainted with her, I suppose I am not. I think--though of
+that I am by no means sure--that she is engaged to Dr. Everett.
+
+"Oh, then, of course he would think naturally that people ought to know
+her. What is she like?"
+
+"Like nothing," said Alfred, with great promptness. "Did you ever know a
+person named Joy?"
+
+"No;--what a singular name."
+
+"Well, it fits. She is very far removed from mirth, and she is not
+what people call gay, and she is not outspoken apparently at any time,
+though, as I say, I do not know her; but there is something in her face
+that fits the name; I do not know what it is. Sometimes I think it is
+the shining of Christ's face reflected in her; but the puzzle is, why do
+not other faces have it? Faces which belong to him?"
+
+"Perhaps there is a difference in the degree of belonging."
+
+Gracie spoke the words very gently, wondering meanwhile at the way in
+which this thought chimed in with hers about Flossy.
+
+"Oh, there is. But why should there be? If I belong to Christ, I
+_belong_, don't I? There is no half-way service possible. Why do I not
+so look that others take knowledge of me that I have been with Jesus?"
+
+"How do you know but they do?"
+
+"Ah, I know. I know too well. They are more likely a great deal to take
+knowledge that I have been with Satan. I feel the frown all over my face
+a great deal of the time; and the world goes astray a great many times,
+when I suppose it is just myself that is wrong. But, Miss Dennis, I
+hunger for the shining of his face in me."
+
+"That must be the meaning of the beatitude which puzzled my childhood,"
+she answered trying to speak lightly, to hide feelings that were deeply
+moved: "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness,
+for they shall be filled."
+
+"Thank you," he said, smiling; "there is actually a promise! I had
+not thought of it. And yet"--the thoughtful frown gathering almost
+immediately--"do you suppose that a person who really hungered for a
+certain thing could be satisfied with anything else? I often have an
+hour of what at the moment seems to me like hunger for Him, but the hour
+passes, and I get filled--with business, or with plans, or possibly with
+annoyances, and feel nothing but a general irritation for everybody. Do
+you think there can be anything genuine about such desires, so easily
+turned aside?"
+
+"Oh, I do not know," said Gracie, hastily. "Why do you ask me such
+things? Did not I tell you I was not good? Ask those people who are
+unlike all others. Why don't you ask this Joy? She could tell you, I
+presume. I can tell you nothing, save that this is a very strange world,
+not half so nice as I once thought it, and I don't like to think about
+things."
+
+How _different_ he was from other young men with whom she had spent
+fifteen minutes many a time in gay banter! This was, after all, the
+thought uppermost in her mind at the moment. Nice Christian men, of whom
+her father spoke well, and who, people said, were young men to be proud
+of. It seemed to her that she knew them by the dozens, yet with which
+one of them had she ever carried on such a conversation as this? With
+which one could she have attempted any thing of the kind, without
+leading him to suppose that she was taking leave of her senses?
+
+She recalled some of the gay words that she had spoken with these
+others, and tried, hurriedly, to decide why it would sound to her
+perfectly absurd to talk with Alfred Ried in that way. However, she
+did not want to talk with him; he was too full of questionings. "And
+questions," said poor Gracie, "are all that I can ask myself. I want
+somebody to talk with who is assured of the ground on which he stands,
+and can tell me why he stands there."
+
+There was not time for further talk--they were summoned to the new room.
+Bursts of laughter greeted their ears as they made their way eagerly
+across the hall, and Gracie took time to remark that the boys were
+certainly not awed into silence, before the opening door let them into
+the brightly-lighted scene. Every boy was laughing, not quietly, but
+immoderately, and the centre of attraction was evidently Mr. Roberts.
+
+"I have been giving our friends an account of an old army experience,"
+he said, in explanation to Gracie, "and we have been enjoying a laugh
+together over the old memory. You are all acquainted with Miss Dennis, I
+think, young gentlemen?"
+
+Clearly there was no need for any one to introduce Mr. Roberts to the
+boys; apparently they knew him now better than they did any of the
+others. Yet as Gracie, after shaking hands with each of the guests,
+took a vacant seat by Nimble Dick, she was greeted with a confidential
+whisper:--
+
+"That's a jolly chap as ever I saw; and I never heard anything to beat
+the yarn he told us, for cuteness. Who is he?"
+
+"Why, he is Mr. Evan Roberts, the owner of this house."
+
+"My eyes!" said Dick, gazing about him in a startled way. "Look here; he
+ain't that Roberts from the big store on Fourth Street?"
+
+"Yes, he is; he is one of the partners in that store."
+
+Then did Nimble Dick give a low whistle,--suddenly cut short, as the
+other boys looked at him,--and sat up straight in his chair, and for at
+least a minute was awed; or else was bewildered. If his mind could have
+been looked into for a moment something like this might have been seen
+there: "And here I am sittin' in one of his chairs, and been laughin' to
+kill over his funny story! If this ain't the greatest lark out! I wonder
+what they're all after, anyhow!"
+
+Then the real business of the evening commenced.
+
+I should like to describe that evening; but it is really worse to
+describe than the boys. It was designed to be one of those most
+difficult evenings, where every act and almost every word has been
+previously arranged, but arranged in such a manner as to appear like an
+impromptu effort, the result of merely the happenings of the hour.
+
+For instance, Mrs. Roberts aimed at nothing less formidable than the
+teaching of these boys to read and write; and know as well as ever I
+know it, that to frankly own that she was ready and willing to give her
+time and patience in so teaching them would be to outwit herself. They
+did not belong to the class who can be beguiled into evening schools.
+There are such; Mark Calkins would have seized such an opportunity
+and rejoiced over it, but these were lower in the scale; they did
+not realize their need, and they had what they in ignorance called
+"independence"; they were not to be "trapped" by evening schools.
+Therefore it required diplomacy; and no people can be more diplomatic,
+on occasion, than certain most innocent-looking little women. Mrs.
+Roberts had studied her way step by step.
+
+Therefore it was, that by the most natural passage possible, she led the
+way to a discussion of different styles of writing, bringing forth to
+aid her a certain old autograph album which had been to many places
+of note, among others Chautauqua, and had the names of distinguished
+persons, as well as of many who were not distinguished, except for
+Christian endurance in consenting to write in an autograph album. Good
+writers were talked about and selected, and poor writers were talked
+about, and it was said by some one, accidentally of course, that a good
+hand was really an accomplishment.
+
+"It is more than that!" declared Mr. Roberts. "A man's business life
+often turns on it. I have myself had to turn away from several otherwise
+suitable helpers in our business because they really could not write a
+good, clear hand, that could be read without studying."
+
+"Are you a good writer, Miss Gracie?"
+
+This remark, coming suddenly to Gracie from her host, almost embarrassed
+her, for you are not to suppose that the very words by which these
+themes should be introduced had been planned, and it had not occurred to
+Gracie that so personal a question might be asked her. But she rallied
+quickly.
+
+"No, sir; I am sorry to say that I am not. I write what papa calls a
+mincing hand; all jumbled up together, you know, or running into each
+other, the letters are, and so difficult to read that papa said when I
+came away he hoped I would call on his friend, Dr. Stuart, every day,
+and write a letter on his type-writer."
+
+"What is that?" interrupted Nimble Dick, his face curious.
+
+"What? A type-writer? Oh, it is a strange little machine used instead of
+the pen--at least, a very few people use it. It is quite new, I think,
+and must be very curious. I never saw one, but the writing looks just
+like print. Dr. Stuart, a pastor in the city, is my papa's friend, and
+writes to him on his, and papa reads the letter with great satisfaction,
+saying to me, 'There, daughter, that is something like! People who
+cannot write well enough for others to read should print.'"
+
+"They are not so very uncommon, Miss Dennis," explained Dr. Everett,
+who saw the eagerness on Nimble Dick's face. "It is a comparatively new
+invention, but is being caught up very promptly. I think nearly all
+the leading lawyers use them, and those who do not own them are
+getting their copying done at the rooms. They are very ingenious little
+instruments."
+
+"Did you say you never saw one?"
+
+This question from Mr. Roberts to Gracie, and he added:--
+
+"Mrs. Roberts, I believe you have never had other than the first glimpse
+I showed you in the Parker Building. I have an idea. Suppose I rent one
+of the little fellows to interest us? It would be pleasant to look into
+it and see how it works. Did none of you ever see one? Well, now, we'll
+try for that on next Monday evening. I'll have one sent up to-morrow,
+and, Miss Gracie, we'll appoint you showman for the following Monday; so
+it is to be hoped that you will employ your leisure in learning how to
+manage the creature, and perhaps send your father a readable letter at
+the same time."
+
+Now, as may readily be supposed, all this about machinery had not been
+arranged for beforehand, but was a side issue, born of the fact that the
+watchful servant of his Master saw an eager look in the eyes of the boy
+Dick directly there was anything said that suggested machinery. One
+of the great aims of these evenings was to study character, however
+developed.
+
+Having turned his company from the regular channel, Mr. Roberts made
+haste to put them skilfully back where they were before:--
+
+"Still, it would be a pity to resort to machinery simply because one did
+not know how to write well. I would rather set to work to correct the
+error. I happen to know one of our number who can write a very enviable
+hand. Do you know, Ried, that the letter you wrote me was the first
+thing which attracted me to you? I remember I showed the note to one of
+our senior partners, who was particularly disturbed by poor writing, and
+he said: 'Engage him, Roberts, do! A young man who can write like that
+will be a relief.' Mrs. Roberts, I move you that we resolve ourselves at
+this moment into a writing-class, to be taught by Mr. Ried. My dear sir,
+will you take us in hand?"
+
+Something of this kind had been planned--at least, it had been planned
+that Ried should be asked to do this thing; but he found the actual
+asking embarrassing, and struggled with it with flushing cheeks. Gracie
+came to his aid:--
+
+"I don't know whether I'll take lessons or not. Who wants to expose
+one's ignorance? Will you teach? Must we each give a specimen of our
+present attainments?"
+
+Instantly Ried divined the reason for the question.
+
+"No," he said, eagerly; "oh, no; I should begin with those horrors of
+your childhood, pothooks or something of that sort; lines and curves,
+you know. There are not many of them after all in our letters, and when
+once a person has conquered them it is easy to put them together."
+
+There was more talk, easy and social. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, the doctor,
+and Gracie seemed equally interested in the project, and questioned
+young Ried, until he assured them that he began to feel like a veritable
+professor. Apparently the boys were forgotten. This very fact put them
+at their ease, and they listened, interested and amused over the thought
+that these ladies and gentlemen wanted to go to school!
+
+At first I do not think it occurred to one of them that he was included
+in the proposal to form an writing-class.
+
+How was it done? I am not sure that any one of the eager group of
+workers could have told you afterward, so excited did they become over
+this first scheme. Nobody could remember just what words were said, nor
+who said them, nor whether the boys all looked equally startled when
+paper and pen were put into each hand. They remembered that some shook
+their heads emphatically, and that Nimble Dick spoke plainly: "No you
+don't! I can't write any more than a duck can, and I never expect to."
+Mrs. Roberts knew that Dirk Colson's dark face turned a fierce red, and
+he snapped the offered pen half-way across the table with his indignant
+thumb and finger. But of these words and acts nobody apparently took any
+notice. The writing began, and the first marks given as copies were
+so simple, looked so easy to do, and the attempts of the ladies and
+gentlemen fell so far short of what the teacher desired, and were so
+unmercifully criticised by him, and the criticisms were so merrily
+received by the writers, that at last the whole thing took the form of
+a joke to Nimble Dick's mind, and he became possessed with a burning
+desire to try. One by one the boys stealthily followed his example;
+Alfred taking care to watch eagerly, to commend both Stephen Crowley
+and Gracie Dennis in the same breath for some true stroke, and criticise
+both Mrs. Roberts and Nimble Dick for not holding the pen aright.
+
+The entire party became so interested that only Mrs. Roberts knew just
+when Dirk Colson stealthily filliped back his pen from the distance to
+which it had been rolled, and, sitting upright that he might attract
+the less notice, tried his hand on the curve which was giving even Dr.
+Everett trouble.
+
+When the young teacher discovered it he made also another discovery,
+which he proclaimed:--
+
+"Upon my word, I beg the pardon of each of you, but Colson here has made
+the only respectable _R_-curve there is in the company."
+
+Then if his sister Mart had seen the glow on Dirk's face, I am not sure
+that she would have known him. There was a momentary transformation.
+
+As for Mrs. Roberts, she bowed low over the letter she was carefully
+forming, but it was to say in soft whisper heard by one ear alone:--
+
+"Thank God!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+"YOURN'S THE WAY!"
+
+
+You are not to suppose, because this first Monday evening (which, by the
+way, was concluded with sandwiches and coffee) was a success, pronounced
+so by all concerned, that therefore the ones which followed were all
+rose-color.
+
+Fortunately, not one of the workers expected this, and so were brave and
+cheerful under drawbacks.
+
+These were numerous and varied.
+
+After the first novelty wore off, it took at times only the most trivial
+excuses to keep the boys away. Sometimes when they called their conduct
+was anything but encouraging. They lolled in the easy-chairs, smelling
+strongly of tobacco and other bar-room odors, refused insolently to
+apply themselves to any work at hand, audibly pronounced the whole
+thing "slow," and in numberless ways severely tried the patience of both
+Alfred and Gracie.
+
+For the others, they had counted the cost,--at least the gentlemen
+had,--and expected to move slowly, even to appear to go backward some
+of the time. As for Mrs. Roberts, I have told you that she worked in a
+peculiar manner, with the motto, "This one thing I do," apparently ever
+before her.
+
+Each evening was distinct in itself, with efforts to make and obstacles
+to overcome; and at its close she had a way of laying it aside, as
+something with which her part was done, not attempting even to calculate
+results; then she was ready to turn to a new day, and work steadily for
+that.
+
+The winter was slipping away and Gracie Dennis lingered. She could
+hardly have told you why, yet there were many apparent reasons. Mrs.
+Roberts wanted her, rejoiced in her, and coaxed irresistibly as often
+as the thought of going home was mentioned. Then Gracie, laugh over the
+peculiar work going on as she might, was undeniably interested in those
+boys. She was working for them, therefore of course she was interested.
+
+"I don't see how you can go this week?" would young Ried say to her,
+with a perplexed air; "you know we have that matter all planned for next
+Monday evening. How can we carry out the scheme if you are not there to
+do your part?"
+
+Then would Gracie laugh and demur and admit, to herself only, that it
+was very pleasant to be needed--as she certainly was--for one night
+more; and so the nights passed.
+
+Her work was to be "Professor of Elocution," as Mr. Roberts gaily called
+her when the workers were alone together. It had been discovered that
+she could read both prose and poetry with effect. So a reading-class was
+organized, and they chose for the first evening, not one of Bryant's or
+Whittier's gems, nor selections from Milton or Shakespeare, which would
+have suited part of the company, nor yet the "Easy Readings" in some
+standard spelling-book, which would have fitted the capacity of the
+others, but with great care and much discussion, one of Will Carleton's
+descriptive poems, full of homely, yet tender language, full of pathos
+and of humor, was unanimously selected.
+
+The first evening reading had been commenced with nuts and apples. There
+are those who can see no connection between this and the intellectual;
+happily for the characters with whom she had to deal, Mrs. Roberts was
+not one of them. While the others were still enjoying the refreshments
+she took the book and read. This was her quiet little sacrifice. It was
+not pleasant to her to become a public reader. It required courage
+to get through with one verse, with Dr. Everett sitting opposite, and
+Gracie Dennis on a low seat at her side, and her husband listening
+intently. Mrs. Roberts was not a good reader, and was aware of it. She
+pronounced the words correctly, it is true; but when you had said that,
+you had said all that there was to offer in praise of her effort. She
+had some exasperating faults. But she bravely read the two verses, and
+some of the boys listened, and one of them laughed; he had caught a
+gleam of the fun in the poem. This, of course, was Nimble Dick.
+
+Then Alfred Ried made the same effort on the same verses; his
+performance was very little better, and he, too, knew it. He could
+write, but he was by no means a public reader; this was his offering to
+the general good. If those fellows, by reason of his mistakes, could
+be induced to climb, he was willing to offer his pride on the altar. No
+matter by what petty trials they were caught so that they were really
+caught.
+
+Then followed Gracie Dennis, and her own father, acceptable preacher
+though he was, might with credit to himself have taken lessons of her.
+She was certainly, for one so young and so unprofessional, a magnificent
+reader. So indeed was Marion Wilbur, and she had enjoyed teaching
+Gracie.
+
+The poem blossomed in her hand. The crunching of nuts and apples
+entirely ceased. The boys sat erect and listened and laughed and flushed
+and swallowed suspiciously over some of the homely pathos. They had
+never heard anything like that before, and they evidently appreciated
+it. She read through to the end.
+
+Then were unloosed the tongues! They exclaimed in delight:--
+
+"What an accomplishment it is!" said Mr. Roberts; "and how few possess
+it. Doctor, how many really fine readers have you heard in your life?"
+
+"About three," said the doctor, laconically.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Roberts, "let us all be exceptions. Gracie, teach us
+how. I will try again."
+
+And she did, on the first verse of the poem; with better success than
+before; but how sharp the contrast between her reading and Gracie's, she
+knew! It was not easy for her to read.
+
+I don't know, possibly I am mistaken, but it seems to me that I have
+known people ready for large sacrifices, who yet would shrink painfully
+from these little ones.
+
+In discussing the programme for the evening, the question had been, when
+each had done his part, How were they to influence the boys to join?
+_Could_ they join? Was it probable that they knew enough about reading
+to attempt to speak the words of the poem? With reference to this
+obstacle a poem had been chosen full of simple, homely words, such as
+are in common use; especially was the first verse free from what Mr.
+Roberts called "shoals." Having heard the verse read several times, it
+was hoped that some one of the seven might have courage to attempt it,
+but Gracie did not believe that such would be the case.
+
+"I don't see how we can ask them, and do it naturally," said Dr.
+Everett. "It is such an unheard-of thing, you know; and I am afraid, do
+our best, it will present itself to them as a patronage, and that will
+be fatal. The people who are low enough to need patronage are the very
+ones who won't endure it."
+
+Whereupon various ways of managing the matter were discussed and
+discarded; suddenly Mrs. Roberts turned to her young lieutenant, who had
+been silent for some time, and said:--
+
+"What are you thinking of, Mr. Ried? Do you see a way out?"
+
+"No," he said; "I have neither knowledge nor skill in such matters,
+but my thoughts just then were far away; I was thinking how curiously,
+certain apparently trivial instances of one's childhood will stand out
+with almost startling prominence."
+
+"What sent you off in that direction?" questioned Dr. Everett. "There
+must have been an association of ideas."
+
+"Oh, there was; I was thinking how vividly I remembered a discussion
+between my mother and my sister, younger than Ester, in regard to some
+matter which perplexed them; and when they could come to no satisfactory
+conclusion they appealed to my sister Ester, who was resting as usual on
+her lounge. I can seem to hear her voice as she said: 'We haven't to do
+anything about it until to-morrow; perhaps to-morrow will have a light
+of its own for our direction."
+
+"Thank you!" Mrs. Roberts said, her eyes lighting with an appreciative
+smile; "we have not to do anything about this until Monday night, and
+perhaps Monday night will see us wise."
+
+I don't know how many thought of this little conversation when Monday
+evening came, but certainly Alfred Ried and Mrs. Roberts did, for
+she glanced at him and smiled significantly when Dr. Everett, having
+apparently forgotten that anything beyond their own pleasure was in
+contemplation, challenged Gracie to a discussion as to the emphasis on
+a certain word in the second line; he had never heard it so read, and he
+called for an analysis that would sustain the reading, and received it,
+and was not yet prepared to yield the point, but read the verse as he
+had imagined it should be read, and then Gracie, at Mr. Roberts' call,
+repeated it with her rendering, and I am not sure but all parties
+concerned actually forgot their final object in the interest of the
+discussion until they were suddenly called to it by an interrupting
+voice:--
+
+"Your'n's the way," it said, with an emphatic nod of a shock of matted
+hair, "your'n's the way."
+
+It was Dirk Colson. He had forgotten for the moment that anybody was
+listening to him, save the two readers. He was looking directly at
+Gracie, and the nods were evidently intended for her.
+
+"Of course it is!" she said, eagerly, her face flushing with a triumph
+that had nothing to do with the right emphasis; "you read it, won't you,
+and show these people that we are right?"
+
+Afterward Mrs. Roberts confessed that she involuntarily placed her hand
+on her heart with a dim idea of hushing its beating lest others would
+hear, so important to her did the moment seem. Dr. Everett looked
+dismayed. The least hopeful one of the seven seemed Dirk. None of them
+knew of his dangerous talent for imitation. None of them believed that
+he would make any attempt at reading, but thought he would shrink into
+deeper sullenness. All of them were mistaken. He reached for the book,
+glanced for a moment over the lines, and then read the verse, with so
+complete an imitation of Gracie Dennis, and yet with a voice and manner
+that so fitted the homely words and the homely scene described that the
+effect was actually better than when Gracie read.
+
+Instinctively the cultured portion of his audience greeted the effort
+with a clapping of hands. The blood, meantime, rolled in dark waves over
+Dirk's face. He had been cheered before. None of his present applauders
+could imagine what a set had often clapped their hands over his
+successful imitations; but Dirk, who liked applause as well as other
+human beings do, had never, in his wildest stretches of imagination,
+placed himself before such people as listened now and received their
+approval.
+
+Great was the excitement and satisfaction. The six companions, far from
+feeling any emotion of jealousy, seemed greatly elated, believing that
+one of their number had made a "hit," and increased their importance.
+
+No one else could be found to attempt the verse. Nimble Dick shook his
+head good-naturedly, and declared that he would rather "undertake to run
+an engine to Californy" than try it; and the others were of like mind.
+Then came Gracie to the front again:--
+
+"I'll tell you what you must all do. I have been experimenting with that
+type-writer, Mr. Roberts, all the week. You know it will manifold, with
+the use of carbon paper, and it chances that when I was seized with a
+desire to try its powers in that direction I choose this very verse to
+copy; so I have fifteen good copies in print. You must each take a copy
+and make this verse a study until next Monday; then I shall challenge
+you all to sustain me in my reading."
+
+This proposition was hailed with such satisfaction by the older members
+that it immediately became popular, and each boy received his copy
+mechanically and gazed at it curiously: but Dirk Colson's thoughts were
+turned in a new channel.
+
+"Look here!" he said, detaining Gracie by an imperious inclination of
+his head, as she handed him the copy; "how did you make these? didn't
+you print them fifteen times? I didn't understand what you said."
+
+"Why no!" said Gracie, "the machine will _manifold_. I'll show you; come
+over to the end window; it stands there waiting to be displayed, and it
+is a little wonder."
+
+Then they crowded around the type-writer, and Gracie, really proud
+of the skill she had acquired in a week's time, showed off the little
+wonder to great advantage.
+
+The fact that the type-writer was new to most of the others, that they
+were decidedly ignorant as to its working, increased the comfort of the
+hour by doing away with the embarrassing feeling that any one of
+them was playing a part. Dr. Everett was no more familiar with the
+type-writer than was Dirk Colson, and was just as eager to know about
+it.
+
+Also everybody, apparently, felt an equally strong desire to write his
+name on the marvellous little creature, and each in turn sat down before
+it and moved his awkward hands with nearly equal slowness over the keys,
+picking out the magic letters.
+
+It was this episode that made the workers during their next conference
+branch out in new lines.
+
+"We need something," said Dr. Everett, walking up and down the floor
+in puzzled thought, "we need something that shall be a genuine
+common interest, of which we are all, or all but one, equally
+ignorant--something that we can take hold of with zest, on as low a
+platform as the most ignorant of those seen. I was convinced of that
+when I saw the abandon with which we all went into the type-writer
+business, with a naturalness and equality that, in the matter of reading
+and writing, it is impossible for us to feel. If the machine were
+complicated, so that it would take us each three months or so to master
+it, that would do. What can we take up that will place us on a level?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+"WE HAVE BEGUN BACKWARDS."
+
+
+"Well," said Mr. Ried, "we should want to have one of our number not 'on
+a level.' How would it do to appoint you, sir, to give us a few lectures
+in Hygiene? Popular lectures about air and exercise and ventilation
+and bathing, and all sorts of every-day topics, about which people are
+ignorant."
+
+"That's a capital idea, Ried. Those fellows could certainly be benefited
+by a little attention to such questions; and I'm sure the rest of us
+would like to hear of the principles which govern these important laws.
+Such lectures put into popular form are decidedly interesting, I think.
+Let us vote for them." This was Mr. Roberts' hearty seconding.
+
+But the doctor laughed.
+
+"There is a ludicrous side to it which you do not see," he said.
+"Imagine me holding forth on the importance of ventilation, for
+instance, to a poor follow who comes from a region where father and
+mother, and a horde of children of both sexes and all ages, crowd
+together in one room, and that a cellar, where the sun never penetrates
+and the air that crawls in through the one small window is reeking with
+even more impurities than can be found inside. Or talking about bathing,
+to the poor wretches who have no clothing to change, and barely water
+enough, by carrying it long distances, to satisfy their most pressing
+needs! Still, Ried, I'm not quarrelling with your idea. There is a
+sensible side to it; there are things that I could tell even those boys
+which might interest them, and would certainly be to their advantage to
+know. The subject is one which can be popularized to suit even such an
+audience. I'll try for it occasionally if it shall seem best: but it
+doesn't meet my demand. I want us all on a platform where we shall start
+in equal ignorance and get on together. Of course you are all more or
+less familiar with all the facts that I should have to present, and the
+boys would know it. They are sharp fellows; it wouldn't take them an
+hour to discover that we were fishing for them; and if there is any one
+thing on which they are at present determined, it is, probably, that
+they will not be benefited. What is there that one of us knows, of which
+the others are ignorant? French won't do, for Miss Dennis is acquainted
+with that language, I think, and so are you, Ried, are you not?"
+
+"Well, I can stammer through a few sentences. I don't speak it like a
+native as you do."
+
+At this revelation a vivid blush glowed on Gracie Dennis' cheek. She
+remembered Professor Ellis' comments in French. Then the doctor had
+understood, though his face was so imperturbable! What could he have
+thought of the courtesy of her guest?
+
+Meantime Mr. Ried wore a perplexed face.
+
+"You are right," he said to the doctor; "we are not enough on a level;
+I felt our advantage last night when Miss Dennis was explaining the
+type-writer; but I don't see the way clear. What subject is there on
+which all but one of us could meet on common ground, and that one could
+turn professor?"
+
+Here interposed Mr. Roberts, speaking in a meek tone of voice:--
+
+"If I were not a modest man I should venture a suggestion; as it is, I
+really don't know what to do."
+
+The doctor turned to him quickly:--
+
+"Out with it, man; if you are master of a profession or a trade or
+a theory unknown to the rest of us, you are bound on your honor as a
+member of this unique organization to present it."
+
+At the same moment Mrs. Roberts came to his aid.
+
+"Oh, Evan, teach us short-hand!"
+
+Whereupon Mr. Roberts heaved what was intended to appear as a relieved
+sigh, and announced that his modesty was preserved.
+
+Upon this suggestion they seized with eagerness; not one of them knew
+anything about phonetic writing save Mr. Roberts, and he was master of
+the art.
+
+"It is the very thing!" the doctor said, with heartiness. "I should like
+exceedingly to learn it, and Ried and the ladies may be able to make it
+useful in a hundred ways; and as for the seven, if they really master
+it, it may be the foundation of a fortune for some of them."
+
+So, without more ado, it was planned that at the very next Monday
+evening the subject should be skilfully presented, its importance and
+its fascinations discussed, and the boys be beguiled into taking a first
+lesson, sandwiched in between the all-important reading and writing
+lessons.
+
+Alas for plans! On the very next Monday the conspirators, with the
+exception of young Ried, were together by seven o'clock. The faint aroma
+of coffee floated through the room. A fruit-basket filled with oranges
+occupied a conspicuous table, and everything waited for the guests.
+
+While they waited, instead of enjoying themselves as the four were
+certainly capable of doing, they were noticeably restless; listened for
+the shuffling of careless feet on the steps, and the sound of uncultured
+voices in the hall, and waited expectantly whenever the bell pealed,
+only to be obliged to send word to some caller that "Mr. and Mrs.
+Roberts were engaged."
+
+The special occupation of the four seemed to be to look at their watches
+and to remark that the doctor's was a trifle fast, and to wonder if
+half-past seven would be a more suitable hour for the boys, and to
+wonder what could be detaining Ried.
+
+At last it was half-past seven, and then it was fifteen minutes of
+eight, and then it was ten minutes of eight! And then the door-bell rang
+again. It was Ried, and he was alone! One glance at his distressed
+face told the lookers-on that something was amiss, even before he
+exclaimed:--
+
+"You won't see a boy to-night!"
+
+"Why?" "What is the trouble?" "Where are they?"
+
+These were the various ways of putting the same question.
+
+"One of the McCullum partners has become interested in the boys, it
+seems, and has concluded that he will try what he can do towards their
+elevation; so he has commenced by presenting each one of them with a
+ticket to the Green Street Theatre, and there they are at this moment!"
+
+This startling intelligence was variously received. Dr. Everett
+exclaimed:--
+
+"Is it possible?"
+
+Gracie Dennis remarked that it was something like what she had expected;
+Mrs. Roberts said not a word, and Mr. Roberts added to the astonishment
+of the moment by bursting into a laugh.
+
+Poor Ried seemed to feel the laugh more than anything; his face gathered
+into heavier clouds than before, he bit his lip to hold back the vexed
+words that were just ready to burst forth, and strode almost angrily to
+the further corner of the room.
+
+An embarrassed silence seemed to fall upon the others. At least Gracie
+felt embarrassed; the doctor looked simply expectant.
+
+At last Mr. Roberts drew himself up from his lounging attitude and broke
+into the stillness.
+
+"Ah, now, good people, don't let us make serious mistakes! Come back
+here, my dear young brother, and let us look this thing in the face, and
+talk it over calmly. Are we children playing at benevolence that at
+the first discouragement we should cry out, 'All is lost!' and retire
+vanquished? Come, I laughed because really this does not seem such a
+serious matter to me as it seems to present to the rest of you.
+
+"What did we expect? Here are seven boys, right from the gutters;
+somehow we have had them laid on our hearts, and have enlisted to help
+fight the battle that is going on about them in this world. Christ died
+to save them, and Satan means that the sacrifice shall be in vain. He
+is bringing all his powers to bear on them; and he has many and varied
+powers.
+
+"Here comes into the scene a man benevolently inclined; not a Christian,
+but in his way a philanthropist. By accident he has come in contact with
+one of the boys; by accident he learns that something--he does not know
+quite what--is being attempted to benefit them. Can't you give him the
+credit of being honest? The only thing he thinks of that he can do to
+help is to give them an evening's entertainment. At one of the decent
+theatres there is being presented what seems to be known in their
+parlance as a 'moral play!' So he presents each boy with a ticket. Now,
+what did we expect of those boys?
+
+"Last week a lady and two gentleman who have been members of our church
+for years, left the regular prayer-meeting, and went to the Philharmonic
+concert.
+
+"Ought we to expect that it would even occur to our seven boys to give
+up what to them is a rare treat for the pleasure of spending an evening
+with us? As for the moral obligation, they have probably never so much
+as heard the words.
+
+"Isn't it time we knew what we were about? What are we after? It is well
+enough to teach the poor fellows to read and write, and to help lift
+them up in other ways, but our efforts will amount to very little unless
+we succeed in bringing them to the great Lever of human society; unless
+Christ take hold of this thing we shall fail. Now, has He taken hold? Is
+He, at least, as much interested in them as we are? Is His Holy Spirit
+preceding and supplementing all our efforts? And, if this is the case,
+is an evening at a theatre going to ruin His plans?"
+
+Long before these earnest sentences were concluded Ried had returned
+from his distant corner, and taken a seat near his employer; his eyes
+were full of tears, and his voice trembled:--
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Roberts; I'm an ignorant blunderer; I did feel
+for the moment as though everything were lost."
+
+"We have begun backwards," said Mr. Roberts; "I was reading to-day that
+a mistake the missionaries made for years in trying to _civilize_ the
+Greenlanders; and what a perfect failure they made of it until one day
+almost by accident, a man began to tell them about Christ on the cross,
+and the story melted them. I don't think I have thought enough about Him
+in this matter."
+
+"I stand convicted," Dr. Everett said; "I've made the same mistake, I
+believe, in all my efforts for people. I have been praying for them, it
+is true; but, after all, I feel now as though there had been too much
+relying on human means, and not enough on God. It is a case of 'these
+ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone.'"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Roberts, looking at his watch, "we are in the same
+condemnation; it is, I believe, the most common, and one of the most
+fatal, mistakes that Christian workers make. But there is a way out. We
+expected to spend until ten o'clock with those boys. It is nearly nine
+now; suppose we spend the next hour with Christ, asking for the power of
+the Holy Spirit on any and every effort that we may make for them in the
+future? Our ultimate aim is to bring every one of them to Jesus and He
+knows it; now if we have gone about in the wrong way, we have only to
+ask Him forgiveness and look to Him steadily for guidance. What do you
+say, friends, shall we spend the hour in taking them to the only One who
+really can afford them lasting help?"
+
+I suppose that He who "maketh the wrath of man to praise Him" is equally
+able to manage the folly of man. Could the injudicious philanthropist
+have looked into that room that evening, and heard the prayers that
+went up to God for those boys, and understood something of the power
+of prayer, he would have had one illustration of how God manages the
+foolishness of men.
+
+It was a very earnest prayer-meeting. These workers had each one bowed
+in secret, and with more or less earnestness, asked for God's blessing
+on their efforts; but it occurred to them that evening, as a very
+strange thing, that they had never unitedly prayed for this before.
+Therefore there was an element of confession in all the prayers that
+moved Gracie Dennis strangely. Especially was this the case when she
+heard her old acquaintance, Flossy, pour out her soul's longings. It
+happened, so strange are the customs of Christians, that though this was
+the daughter of a minister of the gospel, herself a Christian, she had
+never before heard a lady pray in the presence of gentlemen. She had
+heard of their doing so; heard them criticised with sharp sarcasm. Some
+of the criticisms which had sounded full of keenness and wit when she
+heard them, recurred to her at this time, and some way, with Flossy's
+low, earnest voice filling her heart, they dwindled into shallowness and
+coarseness. All the same, their baneful influence was on her, and
+helped to hold her back from opening her lips, for the critic had been
+Professor Ellis.
+
+When the hostess and her young guest were left alone together that
+evening, the latter had a question to ask:--
+
+"Flossy Shipley!"--the name you will remember which she always went back
+to when excited--"I didn't know you believed in praying in _public_!
+Have you changed in _everything_?"
+
+"In public, my dear!" with a quiet smile; "why, I am in my own house!"
+
+"Oh, yes; but you know what I mean--before gentlemen. Do you really
+think it is necessary?"
+
+"As to that, Gracie, I don't believe I thought anything about it. I
+wanted to pray for those boys, and so I prayed."
+
+"And didn't you really shrink from it at all? How very queer! Flossy, I
+do believe nobody was ever so much changed by religion as you have been.
+I don't see what makes the difference. I'm sure I think I'm a Christian,
+but I could never do such a thing as that."
+
+"Not if you believed it to be your duty?"
+
+"But I don't believe it," said the fair logician, her face flushing;
+"I think it is out of place. I beg your pardon, Flossy, I don't mean I
+think it sounded badly in you; but only that for me it would be horrid,
+and I couldn't do it."
+
+"Then what are you talking about, my dear? If you should never consider
+it your duty, you would certainly never be called upon to do it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+"OH, WHAT A NICE THOUGHT!"
+
+
+This very calm view of the question gave Gracie time to recover from
+her excitement, and to laugh at her folly. Then Mrs. Roberts said, still
+speaking very gently:--
+
+"I don't want to argue with you, dear, and I couldn't if I wished; you
+know I am a dunce about all such things; but I just want to ask you a
+little question; you need not answer me unless you choose; not now, that
+is--perhaps some time we may want to talk about it. I would like to know
+the reasons that people have for thinking that it is out of place for a
+lady to kneel down with her Christian friends and speak to Jesus about a
+thing that they unitedly desire, and that they believe He is able to do
+for them? If it is not proper to speak before them, why is it proper to
+speak _to_ them on the same subject?"
+
+This question Gracie carried to her room for thought.
+
+Meantime, as Dr. Everett and young Ried went homeward, they had a talk
+together.
+
+"When I found out that those boys had gone to the theatre to-night I was
+completely discouraged," declared Ried. "It seemed to me that our work
+was a failure; I could almost see Satan laughing over the success of his
+scheme. I never felt so about anything in my life. And now it seems to
+me that perhaps the Lord will let it result in being the best thing that
+ever happened to us."
+
+To all of which Dr. Everett made the apparently irrelevant answer:--
+
+"Mr. Roberts and his wife are singularly well mated; how perfectly they
+fit into each other's thoughts. Ried, you and I have a great deal to
+learn from them."
+
+"I have," said Ried, meekly.
+
+Yet another bit of talk closed this evening:
+
+"McCullum has given me an idea," Mr. Roberts said to his wife as they
+sat together reviewing the day. "Not a bad one, I fancy. I wonder when
+we can act on it and watch results? There are tickets for other places
+besides theatres. Why couldn't we furnish them for some entertainment,
+lecture, or concert, or something of the sort, that would be really
+helpful? The only difficulty is that there are few helpful places as yet
+within reach of their capacities. It takes an exceptional genius to hold
+such listeners."
+
+But his wife, her face aglow, clasped her hands in an ecstasy of
+delight.
+
+"What a beautiful thought!" she said; "and how nice that it should come
+to you just now, when there will be such a splendid opportunity to
+put it in practice. Why, don't you know? Gough, next week, fifty cent
+tickets; on temperance, too! how grand! And Evan, let us give them each
+two tickets. I want that Dirk Colson to take his sister; perhaps he will
+not, but then he may; one can never tell. Oh, Evan, won't it be nice?"
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Roberts, "as usual you are ahead of me. I had not thought
+of the two tickets apiece. That is a suggestion for their manliness.
+Flossy, we'll try it."
+
+Yet another bit of talk.
+
+They shambled down the stairs, from the second-rate hall at a late hour
+that evening--those seven boys; quiet for them, though the play had been
+exciting, and not remarkably moral "viewed" from the standpoint of a
+Christian.
+
+"After all," said Nimble Dick, breaking a silence with speech, as though
+the subject of which he spoke had been under discussion among them,
+"after all, it was rather sneaking to bolt and say nothing; I kind of
+wish we hadn't done it."
+
+"That's what I told you all along," said Dirk Colson, with even unusual
+sullenness, "but you would go and do it, and we was fools enough to
+follow you."
+
+"And I'll bet she had oysters or something!" This from Jerry Tompkins;
+you have probably no idea how hungry he was at that moment.
+
+"They was goin' to do somethin' new to-night; that there Dennis girl
+told me so when I met her on the street yesterday; something that we
+would like first rate, she said--a brand-new notion." This was Stephen
+Crowley's contribution to the general discomfort.
+
+"Well," said Nimble Dick, and the sigh with which he spoke the word
+would have gone to Mrs. Roberts' heart, "I s'pose it's all up now; I
+shouldn't wonder if we never got another bid; I wouldn't if I was them,
+I know that; and their old theatre wasn't no great shakes, after all.
+We've been a pack of fools, and I don't mind owning it."
+
+Whereupon, having reached the corner, they separated and went glumly to
+their homes. And this is gratitude! What a pity Mr. McCullum--who had
+been smiling over his benevolence all the evening--could not have heard
+them!
+
+The weeks that followed this night, were crowded with trifles on which
+hung important and far-reaching results. This is a very trite saying, I
+know. All weeks are crowded with eventful trifles; at least, we in our
+blindness call them trifles, although we are constantly discovering
+their importance, and being constantly astonished over them.
+
+Among other things, the seven boys became nine,--having taken to their
+companionship two choice spirits, apparently worse than themselves,
+and appeared at the South End Mission with all the bravado that boys
+of their stamp are apt to put on when they feel somewhat ashamed of
+themselves. The consequence was that the trials which Mrs. Roberts had
+to endure from them, though a trifle less apparent to others, were not a
+whit less distressing than usual.
+
+But before the session was concluded they were treated to a sensation
+that held them in silent astonishment for nearly five minutes. Any
+person well acquainted with Alfred Ried could have told that he had a
+plan in view, and was trying to carry it in the face of some opposition.
+He looked convinced, and Mr. Durant looked astonished and troubled;
+there was much low-toned talk between them and some shaking of head.
+Apparently, however, Mr. Ried came off victor, for his brow cleared, and
+he presently made his way to Mrs. Roberts' side and said a few words,
+and must have been gratified by the sudden lighting up of her face and
+her eager:--
+
+"Oh, what a nice thought! Even if it fails, apparently, it will not
+utterly, for the suggestion will help them."
+
+In the course of time the new idea came to the front. There was to be
+a festival, or a social, or an entertainment at the South End in the
+course of a few weeks,--a sort of anniversary of the starting of the
+Mission. Among other work that was in progress, the decoration of the
+room, involving the hanging of pictures, banners, mottoes, wreaths,
+etc., required some strong arms and willing hands. Committees were to be
+formed. Two weeks before, teachers had been appointed to prepare a
+list of committees. It fell to young Ried to appoint the committee on
+decoration. When he was called upon for his report, he came promptly
+forward, like a man ready for action, and commenced:--
+
+"A committee of four has been deemed amply sufficient for decoration,
+and I appoint for the purpose the following: Richard Bolton, Morris
+Burns, Miss Gracie Dennis, and Miss Annie Powell."
+
+The teachers, who had been long at the Mission, looked from one to
+another with a bewildered air. Morris Burns they knew,--a clear-eyed
+young Scotchman, with willing hands and feet ever ready to run of
+errands for all workers; a boy of nineteen or so, whom everybody liked;
+warm-hearted, unselfish, and thoroughly trustworthy. Annie Powell was
+one of the older girls in Mr. Durant's Bible-class; a sweet-faced,
+ladylike little factory girl, who would work in with Morris Burns
+nicely. Miss Gracie Dennis was Mrs. Roberts' beautiful young friend; all
+the teachers knew her, and all thought it very kind in her to throw her
+strength and taste into the preparations as heartily as though she
+were one of them. But who was Richard Bolton? Nobody knew. Yet their
+knowledge of business etiquette told them that he was chairman of the
+Decoration Committee. Where was he? Not a teacher, certainly, for they
+were intimately acquainted with one another; and they knew no such name
+in the one Bible-class made up of trustworthy helpers.
+
+Over in Mrs. Roberts' class, with the single exception of the teacher,
+there was equal ignorance; the nine boys had stopped their restless
+mischief to listen, because there is a sort of fascination to boys
+in all the details of well-managed business; they liked to hear the
+appointments; but who Richard Bolton might be seemed not to occur to one
+of them. It is true that Jerry Tompkins nudged Nimble Dick in anything
+but a quiet way with his elbow, and murmured, "You've got a namesake it
+seem, in this 'ere job." Yet no light dawned on them.
+
+Mr. Durant, who, it is possible, has not appeared to you in a favorable
+light, for the reason that he was being much perplexed by the entirely
+new methods being introduced among the boys who had heretofore driven
+him to the very verge of desperation, was really a quickwitted man, and
+having succumbed to what he feared was a wild experiment, knew how to
+help carry it out properly. He came briskly to the front,--Alfred's
+committee being the last on the list,--and began his work.
+
+"The chairmen of these different committees will be kind enough to
+report to me as rapidly as possible the time and place of their first
+meeting for consultation, and I will make the announcements." Then he
+stepped to Mrs. Roberts' class. "Bolton," he said, bending toward that
+astonished scamp, and speaking as though this were an every-day affair,
+"you are chairman, I believe, of the Decoration Committee; where and
+when will you have them meet?"
+
+Imagine Nimble Dick's eyes! Nay, imagine the eyes and faces of the
+entire nine! It would have been a study for an artist.
+
+For a moment Nimble Dick was speechless; then he managed to burst forth
+with:--
+
+"What in thunder are you talking about?"
+
+"Your committee," said Mr. Durant, politely ignoring the manner of the
+questioner. "You must call them together, you know, to plan your work.
+Where shall it be, and when?"
+
+"I ain't got no committee; and I ain't got no place to meet nobody; and
+I don't know what in thunder you're after."
+
+Then came Mrs. Roberts to the rescue:--
+
+"Why, Mr. Bolton, you can meet at our society parlor, you know; it is
+the very place, and will be so convenient for Miss Dennis."
+
+"What's to meet, and what's to do?" said Dick, defiantly. "I ain't going
+to meet nobody."
+
+"Why, it is just to hang mottoes and banners, and trim the room for the
+Anniversary. Of course you'll help; I would have the meeting arranged
+there by all means."
+
+"Very well," said Mr. Durant, quickly, as though he had received the
+answer from the chairman himself. "Now as to time; you ought to come
+together to-morrow evening if you could; there is a good deal to do."
+
+"Mr. Bolton, couldn't you come up at six o'clock for once? Then you
+could get your work all done before the time for our social. I can
+arrange for Annie Powell to be there at that time; and, Mr. Durant,
+doesn't Morris Burns work for you? Could he be present at six o'clock?
+Then I don't see but your meeting is nicely planned. You can be there at
+six, can't you, Mr. Bolton?"
+
+"I tell you I don't know nothin' what you are talking about."
+
+Nimble Dick, who was rarely anything but good-natured, was surprised by
+the bewilderments of the situation into being almost as fierce as Dirk
+Colson was habitually; the gaping amazement of his boon companions
+seeming to add to his irritation.
+
+"But you will," said his teacher, cheerily. "It is an easy matter to
+explain; Miss Dennis knows all about such things; and I'm going to help,
+though they haven't honored me with an appointment."
+
+At a sign from the lady, Mr. Durant stepped back to his platform and
+announced:--
+
+"The chairman of the Committee on Decoration desires me to say that
+his committee is called together to-morrow evening, at the Young Men's
+Social Parlors, No. 76 East Fifty-fifth Street, at six o'clock, _sharp_,
+as the chairman has another engagement at seven."
+
+"I had to coin a name for the place of meeting," he said to Mrs. Roberts
+afterwards. "I beg your pardon if it was wrong; but Ried has been giving
+me glowing accounts of that room, and you said something about its being
+a social parlor, didn't you?"
+
+"It is a good name," said Mrs. Roberts. "We have awkwardly called it the
+'new room.' I am glad it is christened. I will have some curtains hung
+through the centre to-morrow, to make parlors instead of parlor of it; I
+can see how a second room can be made useful in several ways."
+
+Thus was the bewildering committee willed into existence; the chairman
+thereof being still so dumbfounded with his position that he did not
+rouse until the laughing boys, by whom he was surrounded, began to take
+in some of the fun of the situation, and to assault him right and left
+with mock congratulations, ill-suppressed groans, hisses, and the like.
+Then he turned towards them with new-born dignity that would have fitted
+Dirk Colson, and said:--
+
+"If you fellows don't shut up, and behave yourselves something like
+decent for the rest of the time, I'll chaw half a dozen of you into
+mincemeat as soon as we are out of this!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+"HAD HIS EXPERIMENT BEEN TOO SEVERE?"
+
+
+Dr. Everett was driving rapidly through the city; at least, as rapidly
+as the crowded character of the street would permit. He was out on
+professional duty, and had just been congratulating himself that his
+regular calls were now made for the day, and unless something special
+intervened he should have a couple of hours free for the alleys.
+
+That meant professional duty, too, and of the very hardest character,
+one would suppose, as it brought him in contact not only with sickness
+in some of its most repulsive forms, but with abject poverty as well,
+and too often with loathsome forms of sin; yet he went about this
+work with a zest that his regular practice did not furnish. This
+was something done solely for Jesus' sake, and with an eye that was
+manifestly single to His glory.
+
+He had already selected his alley, and was planning how, when his horses
+were safely stabled, he could make a cross-cut to it, when his eyes were
+held by two persons who were ascending together the stairway that led
+to one of the public halls. His face darkened as he watched them.
+Apparently they were engrossed with each other, and took no notice of
+him; but there were reasons why he specially desired to keep them in
+view. A network of carriages and wagons such as is common to crowded
+thoroughfares blocked his path just then, and prolonged his opportunity
+to watch the two.
+
+They made their way in a very leisurely manner up the long staircase,
+letting others, more in haste, pass them continually; yet presently they
+joined the group who were passing up tickets of entrance.
+
+The doctor signalled a policeman, and entered into conversation:--
+
+"What is going on in Seltzer Hall?"
+
+"Well, sir, there's a kind of a concert, I guess. They play on goblets,
+they say--just common glass goblets--and make fine music."
+
+"An afternoon entertainment?"
+
+"Yes, sir, as a kind of introduction, you know; they expect to get a
+crowd for evening by the means."
+
+"Do you know where tickets are to be had?"
+
+The policeman indicated a bookstore at his left by a gesture from his
+thumb, and said, "Right here," and offered to secure some at once. He
+knew Dr. Everett; many of the policemen did.
+
+His offer was accepted with thanks, and the doctor presently wound his
+way out from the network with two green tickets in his pocket. His plans
+for the afternoon had been suddenly changed. Instead of spending the
+time in Sewell alley, he had decided to attend a musical exhibition, the
+instruments being goblets!
+
+He must make all speed now, so he left the crowded street and dodged
+through several byways to the stables.
+
+No use to keep his horses. "She would be afraid to drive through such
+crowds," he explained to himself, "and I should be afraid to leave the
+carriage standing."
+
+Rushing out from the stables he caught just the right street-car, and in
+a short space of time was ringing at Mr. Roberts' door.
+
+Gracie Dennis was in the hall, dressed for the street.
+
+"Ah," said the doctor, "I am either fortunate or unfortunate, I wonder
+which? I had set my heart on having you for a companion to what I fancy
+may be a unique entertainment. Is there another engagement in the way? I
+know this is a most unconventional method, but a doctor is never sure of
+his time."
+
+But Gracie Dennis felt too well acquainted with Dr. Everett, and was too
+young and ready for enjoyment to be disturbed about conventionality. She
+merrily declared her willingness to be taken to whatever entertainment
+the doctor had to propose. Mrs. Roberts was out with her husband on
+business connected with church matters, and she had only intended to
+walk a square or two for her health.
+
+On the way the doctor was distrait, Gracie having most of the talking
+to do herself. The truth was, he was trying to recall the faces of the
+people he had seen crowding into the hall, to make sure that he was
+not taking Gracie among people whom he would not care to have her meet.
+Apparently the couple whose movements had changed all his afternoon
+plans were not a sufficient guarantee of respectability. However, his
+face cleared as he recalled one and another, as being in the crowd
+seeking admission; they might not be of the class with whom Gracie was
+accustomed to mingle, but they were respectable people.
+
+Gracie was in a merry mood. She understood enough of the doctor's busy
+life to feel sure that this sudden resolve to be entertained was quite
+out of his ordinary line, and that of itself served to mark the hour as
+exceptional.
+
+"He feels the need of a little every-day fun," she told herself, "and
+I'll help him to have it if I can. Poor man! it must be doleful to go
+among sick and dying people all the time."
+
+They were late at the hall; the concert was well under way; but there
+were plenty of vacant seats. Dr. Everett swept his eye over the room;
+then indicated to the usher just which seat he would have. It was one
+which commanded a view of the young man and woman who seemed to have
+such a mysterious influence over his plans.
+
+He was relieved to find quite early in the entertainment that it really
+was unique, and, in its way, well worth hearing. Had the surroundings
+been agreeable he could easily have given himself up to enjoyment.
+However, they had been seated but a few moments, when he saw by Gracie's
+startled eyes that she had seen and recognized at least one of the
+couple at their left. Professor Ellis, in his usual faultless attire,
+lounged gracefully on the seat in such a manner that his side-face was
+distinct; he rested a well-shaped arm on the back of the seat next
+him, and his delicately gloved hand almost, if not quite, touched the
+shoulder of his companion.
+
+Both he and the lady at his side gave extremely little attention to the
+entertainment in progress. Apparently they had come thither for purposes
+of conversation. They kept up a continuous murmur of talk, interspersed
+at intervals with rippling laughter, and really seemed so entirely
+absorbed in each other as to have at times forgotten that the hall was
+public, and that the attention of many was being turned toward them.
+The girl was pretty, extremely so, with an entirely different style of
+beauty from Gracie Dennis; and a certain indescribable something in her
+face and manner would have told even the most casual observer that she
+moved in a different circle. It was not her dress, unless that was a
+little too pronounced for the place and hour; but quite young ladies in
+good society sometimes make a similar mistake.
+
+Neither was her manner objectionable to the degree that you could have
+pointed to any one thing as offensive; yet you would have been sure, had
+you watched her, that she was without the pale of what we call society.
+
+Gracie Dennis watched her with a kind of fascination;--becoming at last
+so absorbed with the watching, and the apparently troubled thoughts
+which grew out of it, that she gave but slight attention to Dr.
+Everett's occasional remarks, nor seemed to observe that at last he
+lapsed into total silence.
+
+Once, during the hour, the young woman glanced casually in their
+direction, and the careless nod, and free and easy smile with she
+acknowledged Dr. Everett's presence, drew a startled glance from Gracie
+to rest on him for a moment.
+
+"Now I wish I had my horses," the doctor said, as at last they made
+their way down the aisle. "I have a mile's drive up town to take, and I
+think the exercise might be good for you."
+
+Gracie caught at the suggestion, and begged to be allowed to remain in
+the bookstore below while he went for the horses.
+
+"I want a ride, and I want to talk with you," she said, simply.
+
+As this was precisely what he wanted, he went for the horses without
+more delay.
+
+Meantime, Gracie, in one of the windows of the bookstore, was supposed
+to be employed in examining a late book, but in reality gave much
+attention to the couple who were crossing the street, or rather waiting
+for an opportunity to do so.
+
+They seemed in no haste, but were conspicuous, even in the crowded
+street, for their interest in each other. More than one policeman
+regarded them narrowly, as Professor Ellis stood with head bent toward
+the lady, engaged in eager and animated conversation. It was just the
+attitude of absorbed interest with which he had so often listened to
+Gracie; not on the street, it is true, but in some crowded parlor, and
+it had flattered her. It made her frown to-day. They were starting now
+to make the disagreeable crossing. He had taken his companion's hand,
+preparatory to a leap over a muddy curbing; but Gracie could see that
+there was a pressure of it that was unnecessary, and, for the street,
+peculiar; his face, too, was distinctly visible, and the expression on
+it was what Gracie had seen before, but certainly she supposed no other
+person had.
+
+Altogether it was probably well for Professor Ellis' peace of mind that
+he did not turn at that moment, and get a glimpse of the young lady in
+the bookstore. Instead he took his lady away, and they were lost in the
+crowd.
+
+Dr. Everett, making all haste with his horses, had still time for
+anxious thought. Had his experiment been too severe on Gracie? Was it
+possible that her interest in the man was such that the afternoon's
+experience had been mixed with pain as well as with disgust? He could
+not believe it possible that the pure-hearted young girl cared for such
+a man as Professor Ellis! Yet there had been a look on her face when she
+saw those two which startled and hurt him.
+
+When fairly seated in his carriage he did not speak until they had
+threaded the maze of wagons and reached clear ground. Even then he only
+said, "Now for speed," and gave the horses their desire, until crowds
+and business were left behind, and they were driving down a broad
+avenue, lined on either side with stately yet quiet-looking homes.
+Then he drew rein, and obliged the horses to walk; he had by this time
+resolved on probing the wound, if there was one.
+
+"I wish I knew just how much of a villain that man is." These were the
+somewhat startling words which broke his silence.
+
+"What man?" Yet the very tones of Gracie's voice indicated that she knew
+of whom he was speaking.
+
+"That man, Ellis! Professor, I think he is called. I have reason to
+be very suspicious of him. By the way, Miss Gracie, I think he is an
+acquaintance of yours. Have you confidence in him?"
+
+How promptly and indignantly such a question would have received an
+affirmative answer two months before! What should she say now?
+
+"In what respect?" she faltered, more for the purpose of gaining time
+than because she did not understand the question.
+
+"Well, in any respect I am almost prepared to say. I have not the honor
+of the man's acquaintance; but whatever I hear about him, or see in
+him, I dislike and distrust. Just at present his ways are specially
+disturbing. You noticed him this afternoon, I think! The young girl in
+his company belongs to my Sabbath-school. I have a deep interest in her,
+partly because she is the sort of girl who is always more or less
+in danger in this wicked world, and partly because she is capable of
+strongly influencing another, who is a special _protégé_ of mine."
+
+"Who is the girl?" Gracie's manner was abrupt, and her voice
+constrained. It was evident that she was making great effort to control
+herself, and appear indifferent to all parties.
+
+The doctor took no notice of her constraint.
+
+"Her name is Mason. Hester Mason. She attends the Packard Place
+Sabbath-school, which you know I superintend. She is motherless, and
+worse than fatherless; is a clerk in one of the Fourth Avenue stores,
+and is, or was, inclined to be what is called gay. I do not know that
+that term conveys any special meaning to you; in young men I think they
+call the same line of conduct 'fast.' I hope and believe that you would
+not well understand either term; yet, I think, possibly, that watching
+her this afternoon in a public hall will give you some conception of the
+stretch that there is between yourself and her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+"SOME PEOPLE ARE HARD TO WARN."
+
+
+Had Dr. Everett desired in a few words to show Gracie the gulf between
+herself and the man who had been the girl's companion for the afternoon,
+perhaps he could not have formed his sentence better.
+
+She shivered visibly, and the doctor drew the carriage-wraps more
+carefully about her, while he continued:--
+
+"I would not want to give you a wrong estimate of Hester Mason, nor lead
+you to imagine for a moment that I believe a girl who serves behind a
+counter cannot be a true lady. I wanted, rather, to explain to you
+that her opportunities had been limited. She means to be a good girl,
+I think: in fact, I may say I have the utmost confidence in her
+intentions. She is not a Christian, but a few weeks ago I had her name
+on my note-book as one who was almost persuaded, She has been
+fighting the question of personal religion for some time,--her special
+stumbling-block being that she is quick-witted, and has quite a clear
+idea of how Christians ought to live, and can find very few who seem to
+her to be living what they profess. However, as I say, I have been very
+hopeful of her until within a few weeks, when she came in contact
+with this man, and I tremble for the result. He is constant in his
+attentions, and she is evidently flattered and dazed."
+
+"How long has he known her? How did he become acquainted?" Abrupt
+questions still, asked in that curiously repressed voice.
+
+The doctor's face was growing very grave and stern. He feared that there
+was a real wound here.
+
+"Inadvertently, Miss Dennis, it seems that both you and I are to blame,
+or, at least, are involved in the acquaintance. Do you remember a little
+incident which occurred in a streetcar some six weeks ago? A young
+woman, in leaving the car, dropped a package, which you noticing, called
+our attention to, and pointed out the person crossing the street, and
+Professor Ellis announced his willingness to overtake her and return the
+package, as he was about to leave the car. Miss Mason was the person in
+question, and Professor Ellis presumed on that very slight introduction
+to cultivate an acquaintance. I have learned that he quoted my name in
+connection with the incident, and since that day has been on terms of
+exceeding intimacy with Hester."
+
+Gracie was surprised out of her reserve.
+
+"I remember the incident perfectly: but the girl I saw this afternoon
+cannot be the one who was on the car."
+
+"Yes; she was in holiday attire to-day, and in her working garb when
+you saw her momentarily on the car. I remember a feeling of regret that
+Professor Ellis should have so promptly volunteered to do your errand:
+yet I did not know what I dreaded. I simply shrank from the man, and
+wanted others to do so."
+
+"Dr. Everett, what is his motive in showing her attention?"
+
+"I wish I knew. I can tell you what I greatly fear: That it is to play
+with the human heart; to see to what extent he can gain power over it.
+And in this case certainly it is a most cruel thing. The girl has no
+friends, no father or mother to advise with or help her. She is bright
+and pretty, and is being shown glimpses of a world that seems to her
+like fairyland. She is dazzled, and one cannot blame her, for she has
+neither carefully-formed judgment nor trustworthy friends to lean upon.
+Miss Dennis, you can judge from her manner this afternoon what is her
+knowledge of the customs of polite society. I do not think she has
+an idea that she was conspicuous, save for her beauty and the fine
+appearance of her attendant. She is not one to shrink from what she
+would consider legitimate public admiration, and this you can see but
+adds to her danger."
+
+"But, Dr. Everett, you do not think,--you cannot mean that he intends to
+pay her special attention; that he means anything beyond the desire to
+give her a little pleasure?"
+
+"Well," said the doctor, speaking slowly, but with firmness, "you may
+judge, Miss Dennis, what I think,--what any honorable person thinks,--of
+a man who bestows in public the sort of attentions which we saw this
+afternoon, You would have been insulted by them. The only reason that
+this poor girl was not, is because she does not know any better.
+
+"Did you observe the flashing of a peculiarly set ring on her finger? I
+have reason to fear that it belongs to him and that she believes herself
+specially honored in being asked to wear it."
+
+Poor Gracie's cheeks were flaming now. She had not observed the ring,
+but she knew it well, and for one brief evening had worn it herself, and
+then had returned it to the owner with the assurance that she could not
+bring herself to wear it without her father's consent. She remembered
+what a wound she had felt herself bestowing when he had looked at her
+with those expressive, reproachful eyes, and replied that if she felt
+toward him as he did to her, she would not allow even a _father_ to come
+between them. And he had actually given that ring into the keeping of
+this girl!
+
+They rode on in silence, the doctor giving a hint to the horses that
+they might go as fast as they chose. He was in great doubt and pain of
+heart. Could it be possible that this carefully-shielded young girl
+was caught in the toils of a man whom he believed to be an unprincipled
+villain?
+
+If so, had he been unnecessarily cruel in his revelations? Ought he to
+take her home, or drive further, and give her time to recover herself?
+
+Could he have understood what was passing in her mind he would have
+known better what next to say. The simple truth was this: Before she
+came to Mrs. Roberts' the child had believed herself to be a martyr to
+the unreasonable prejudices of her stepmother. She had been led to feel
+that her father had turned against her, solely because of his wife's
+influence over him, and that the wife was piqued because Professor Ellis
+had not paid her sufficient attention in the days of her maidenhood.
+This, the professor had succeeded in teaching Gracie to feel, was
+the sole charge against him. He was, therefore, an ill-used man, and
+therefore her heart went out towards him in sympathy.
+
+It had not been at first a stronger feeling than this; but flattered
+by his attentions, so much more marked and polished than had ever been
+offered to the young girl before, she had taught herself to believe
+that, but for her father's bitterness, she could be to Professor Ellis
+what he delicately and vaguely assured her no one else could, and fill
+a place that hitherto in his lonely life had been left void. She had not
+engaged herself to him; indeed, he had never, in actual words, asked
+her to do so; but to the young and innocent and well-trained there is a
+language which speaks as clearly as words, and is held as sacred.
+
+Gracie had allowed herself to be looked upon as one who was held by
+_others_ from being more to Professor Ellis than she was; who might
+always, perhaps, be held back,--for she had resolved in her own sad
+heart that she would never marry against her father's consent, no, not
+if she were twice of age.
+
+Of late, strange reflections had come to her. She had measured
+Professor Ellis with other men, Christian men, and he had appeared at
+a disadvantage. Also she had measured herself by the side of other
+Christian workers, and herself had appeared at a disadvantage. A vague
+unrest and dissatisfaction with her Christian experience were growing on
+her. Moreover, she was growing interested in those boys, as she had not
+believed that it would be possible for her to be interested when she
+first saw them. She began to believe that some of them, at least,
+would be saved. She wanted to help save them, and to help others. Her
+martyrdom dwindled rapidly into insignificance, until there would pass
+entire days in which she did not once remember that she as an unhappy
+girl.
+
+At last, but a week or two before this afternoon, she had taken her
+affairs in hand, and tried to look steadily at them. The result of her
+hours of thought and prayer was that she was bound to Professor Ellis.
+That is, provided there should come a time in the dim and distant future
+when her father should give his consent, it would be her duty and her
+pleasure, because of what had passed between them, to marry him. Still,
+she began to feel less amazed at her father's opinion of him, less angry
+about it. She began to say to herself, softly and pitifully: "Poor,
+lonely man! he has no one to be his friend. He is not a Christian, and
+that is what makes so great a difference between him and others. It is
+that which papa misses, but I must not desert him; I must pray for him
+all the time, and work for his conversion; then he will grow to be the
+sort of man whom papa can like, and everything will be right." And while
+she said it, she was dimly conscious of a feeling of satisfaction over
+the thought that she was very young, and that it would be a long,
+_long_ time yet before anything could be settled; and that, meantime,
+it certainly was not right for her to have anything to do with Professor
+Ellis, only to pray for him; and that perhaps her father would allow
+her to carry out a project that was under delightful discussion in the
+Roberts family, namely, to remain in the city as a pupil in the famous
+Green Lawn School. And she did not know, foolish little thing, that so
+far even as her heart was concerned everything was wrong.
+
+Perhaps it would be difficult for me to explain to you--that is, if you
+do not understand without explanation--what a turmoil she was thrown
+into by this afternoon's experience. She was far from realizing as yet
+that the uppermost feeling even now was not wounded love, but wounded
+pride; of what poor stuff she had been making a hero! Nothing had ever
+opened her eyes like this before. Was it possible that she had spent
+entire evenings with a man who stooped to set in unpleasant, even
+suspicious light, not his own character only, but that of an ignorant
+young girl?
+
+It would not do to plead a lack of knowledge in excuse for him; he might
+be ignorant of the ways of the Christian world, but no one understood
+better the rules which governed society. During part of the afternoon
+she had been very angry with the girl, but after listening to Dr.
+Everett it began to dawn upon her that her friend had been playing
+with the ignorance of a girl who probably trusted him fully. You are
+to understand that Gracie Dennis was the sort of girl who would be
+made very angry by such a suspicion. The glow on her cheeks was not all
+caused by the fresh air of the spring day.
+
+"Dr. Everett," she said at last, breaking the silence, "what do you
+think he means by asking the girl to wear that ring, or by letting her
+wear it? Does he--do you suppose that he has engaged himself to her?"
+
+"I wish I knew what he meant!" Dr. Everett said again, a surge of
+indignation rushing over him. "If he really meant anything so honorable
+as that, it would be bad enough business for poor Hester; but, as I
+said, I distrust the man utterly; and from my experience with the
+world I have reason. From your knowledge of him, Miss Dennis, could you
+suppose him to be honest and earnest in his attentions to that girl?"
+
+It was a very plain question. It meant more to Dr. Everett than even
+Gracie saw, but she saw enough to know that she was admitting an
+intimacy that made her blush; however, she answered steadily,--
+
+"No, I cannot think that he is honest or honorable."
+
+"So I fear. Witness this afternoon. Gentlemen do not parade their
+friendships before the public gaze, and that man knows it."
+
+The doctor's voice was _very_ stern. He was sure now that there was
+a wound, and that it was being probed; he believed in making thorough
+work, even with wounds; there would be more hope of genuine healing
+afterward.
+
+Gracie's next question--if her companion had but known it--was a
+singular one: "Why have not people who are her friends warned her
+against him, and held her back from making such a false step, if she
+does it in ignorance?"
+
+Oh, Gracie Dennis! How are warnings sometimes received, even by
+carefully-trained girls, who have every reason to trust the love that
+would shield them?
+
+"Some people are very hard to warn," said the doctor. "I have tried it,
+and I have a friend who has tried to help her; but the poor girl, you
+must remember, has not been brought up in a Christian atmosphere--has
+never had a Christian friend who came with the authority of
+relationship. If she had a good father the way would be made so plain.
+As it is, can't you see how naturally she distrusts the rest of us, in
+favor of the man who makes special professions of friendship? I am not
+surprised at Hester, I am only sorry for her."
+
+Had the doctor been carefully informed as to all the circumstances
+connected with Gracie's intimacy with the professor, he could not have
+chosen words which would have touched her conscience more. Had not her
+good father tenderly and patiently warned her? and had she not chosen to
+blind her eyes to all his words, and believe rather in Professor Ellis
+than in him?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+"PART OF THE GREAT WELL-TO-DO WORLD."
+
+
+"I must call at this house," the doctor said, suddenly drawing rein
+before a quiet little house at the foot of a wide lawn. "The gatekeeper
+of this American castle has a sick child whom I have promised to see.
+Can you hold the horses, Miss Dennis, or shall I tie them? This is a
+quiet spot, and they are gentle."
+
+"I am not afraid of anything," Gracie said, eyes aglow as well as
+cheeks. And the doctor went into the house wondering whether Professor
+Ellis, if he could see her now, would not be afraid of her.
+
+Once inside he gave a start of surprise, almost of dismay, for the
+face which appeared at the open door of the sick-room belonged to Joy
+Saunders.
+
+"You here?" he said, trying to control the disturbed element in his
+voice.
+
+She answered quietly:--
+
+"I came out by street-car. Did you drive?"
+
+"Yes,"' he said, abruptly, "but I am not alone. How is the child?"
+and he went forward at once to his professional duties, leaving her to
+wonder over his manner.
+
+It was peculiar, certainly. Joy Saunders was used to abruptness
+from this man, but there was a quality in it to-day that she did not
+recognize. She went and looked out of the window, and saw Gracie Dennis
+holding the horses, saw her red, red cheeks, and flashing eyes, and the
+peculiar, haughty poise of her head, with which the stepmother at home
+was well acquainted.
+
+She did not know this Gracie Dennis save by reputation. Once Dr. Everett
+had asked her to call at Mrs. Roberts', and had made her feel as though
+she were foolishly conventional in declining to do so. "How is she ever
+to know you, according to the rules which trammel society? There ought
+to be some way arranged for Christians to be free from trammels." This
+had been his comment; but he had not asked her again, and she had never
+met Mrs. Roberts, nor yet Gracie Dennis. Yet she knew her very well, and
+had watched her often as she passed. She knew instantly who she was now,
+as she sat there in her haughty beauty, checking with determined hand
+the impatience of those horses. Oh, she knew more than this! It was
+very apparent now why Dr. Everett was peculiarly abrupt, and--well,
+yes--embarrassed. She had almost thought that was the name of the
+feeling, only it had seemed so absurd. And then Joy Saunders held
+her meek little head high, and told herself that he need not fear her
+presence; she could go as she had come, in the street-car.
+
+The doctor came towards her now, speaking rapidly, as usual:--
+
+"Joy, the child is very sick. There ought to be an experienced person
+here to-night. Not you; I am sorry you came up. Do you think your
+mother would come? Will you ride down with me? I have Miss Dennis in the
+carriage, but it is quite large enough for three, you know."
+
+Then Joy had turned away her head, holding it high, and said:--
+
+"No, thank you; I am going down in the street-car."
+
+And that blundering doctor drew on his gloves, saying to himself, "I
+don't know but that is best," and went out, only waiting to say to
+Joy:--
+
+"Will you ask your mother about it? I will see her as soon as I can get
+around. I wish you would go directly home from here--will you?"
+
+Then he lifted his hat to her, and sprang into his carriage and rode
+away with Gracie Dennis; and Joy Saunders waited for the next yellow
+car, and climbed into it, and told herself all the way down town that
+she wished she had stayed at the little house and watched all night by
+the sick child.
+
+The thoughts that Dr. Everett had given to the entire matter were few.
+They ran somewhat after this fashion:--
+
+"Joy here! and I'm afraid of the fever, from all I have heard. I shall
+take her home as soon as possible. How will that poor little girl in the
+carriage manage with a new acquaintance just now, I wonder?
+
+"I am afraid it will be quite a strain. Still, I can do the talking,
+and let her be quiet. The main point is that I hoped she might have a
+suggestion to make about Hester. If she could rouse herself to try to
+save that girl it would be the best thing she could do. If she only knew
+it, Joy is the one who could help her in that direction or any other."
+
+As they dashed down the avenue, he was still occupied in wishing that he
+had urged Joy to ride, and thus forced an acquaintance between her and
+the pretty girl at his side. He was not very patient with what he called
+the "trammels" of society. When there were two people so fitted to enjoy
+and help one another, as were Joy Saunders and Gracie Dennis, he held it
+to be a waste in Christian economy that they should not know each other.
+
+Too much occupied with his thoughts and his driving to give heed to
+passers-by, he lost the careful bow that young Ried had for them as they
+drew near the city's whirl again. Gracie did not; she returned it, with
+a slightly-heightened color in her cheeks, and wondered if that young
+man knew Professor Ellis, and what he thought of him, and what he
+thought of her for being acquainted with him.
+
+Sometimes it seems to me a real pity that on occasion there could not
+be some way of looking into one another's thoughts. So many
+misunderstandings might thus be saved. For instance, there was Ried, who
+went on his way with a clouded brow. Where had Dr. Everett been? and why
+was Gracie Dennis with him? Was it probable that he had been riding for
+pleasure? The bare suggestion astonished the young man. He found that
+he had never before given room to the thought that Dr. Everett took time
+for pleasure! Allowing this to be the case, why had he not taken Joy
+Saunders with him? Such a proceeding would have seemed altogether
+natural, though the honest-hearted young fellow admitted to himself
+that, had he been taking a ride for pleasure, the companion of his
+choice would not have been Joy Saunders. It was certainly a bewildering
+world. So trying did young Ried find his thoughts on that evening that
+he actually set himself deliberately to learn whether the ride was the
+result of chance or design. The consequence was that he learned not only
+of the ride, but of the afternoon entertainment at Seltzer Hall, with
+glass goblets for instruments. This increased his astonishment, and did
+not lessen the gloom on his face.
+
+But the two in the carriage, unconscious of the gloomy young man, or of
+the sad-hearted young girl riding in a street-car, were almost silent
+during the homeward ride, until just as they turned into the avenue that
+led to Mr. Roberts' door. Then Grace said:--
+
+"Dr. Everett, I should like to know that girl. There are some things
+that I ought to say to her, and if I had a chance I would try to say
+them in a way to help her."
+
+"I will manage it," said Dr. Everett, speaking in a quick, relieved
+tone. He felt encouraged for Hester now, and greatly relieved about
+Gracie. She might be wounded, but she was made of the material of which
+he had hoped. She was not going to die herself, nor fold her hands and
+see others ruined, merely because she had been deceived.
+
+He bade her a cheery "Good afternoon!" and drove away, feeling that,
+although he had been obliged to give up Sewell Alley, good work had been
+accomplished. He believed now that he understood the situation.
+
+He was right about one thing: Gracie Dennis had not the slightest idea
+of dying. Her mood was better expressed, half an hour later, when she
+stood at the parlor window, and returned a low, lingering bow from
+Professor Ellis, with a haughty stare from flashing eyes, looking out
+from an erect and motionless head.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dirk Colson's brain was in a whirl. He had an important question to
+settle. In his pocket were two blue tickets, promising to admit him to
+the largest and finest hall in the city to hear the great temperance
+orator. Dirk knew very little about orators, but he had heard of John
+B. Gough, and everything he had heard made him wish to have a glimpse of
+him. You will remember that Dirk was an imitator. He had heard that Mr.
+Gough was also, and down deep in his heart the boy had an ambition to
+hear the man. Now was his unexpected opportunity. Of course, he was
+going, but the perplexing thing was, what to do with that other ticket.
+
+There was Mart? Oh, yes, to be sure, he had not forgotten her; but what
+a strange thing it would be to take her to a lecture! He had never taken
+her anywhere in his life. She had nothing to wear, though he remembered
+at that moment that the mother had, by earnest effort, succeeded in
+getting her shawl out of pawn.
+
+There was one incentive for taking her; it would please Mrs. Roberts.
+Dirk studied the thing for some time, to try to discover why she should
+care, and had finally given up the problem as too great for him. Yet he
+was sure she cared; there had been a wistful light in her eyes when she
+said, "I thought possibly you might like to take that sister with the
+golden hair," that he saw and interpreted. It took him three days to
+decide what he should say, supposing he made up his mind to ask her.
+
+Several people were at work helping him, though he knew nothing about
+that. Mrs. Roberts remarked one evening to young Ried that she wished
+she knew a way to induce Dirk Colson to take his sister, without
+actually asking him to do so. She fancied that, besides the advantage
+which might possibly directly follow an evening spent in that way, it
+would suggest new thoughts to the brother.
+
+The young man caught at the suggestion, and wanted to help carry it
+out. It was not an easy thing to do. He had not grown intimate with Dirk
+Colson; in fact, that misguided young fellow rather resented any attempt
+at intimacy. He was, however, acquainted with Sallie Calkins; the
+numerous trips he had made to their room during Mark's illness had
+brought him into such constant and pleasant contact with Sallie and her
+brother that they looked upon him as a tried friend. Sallie, he knew,
+was a friend of the shy, golden-haired sister. So one evening he went
+to call at the Calkins room, with a vague hope of helping indirectly in
+bringing to pass Mrs. Roberts' desires.
+
+To Sallie he made known the wish that Dirk would take his sister to
+the lecture, and secured from her a promise to help the scheme along,
+provided it developed.
+
+After he went away, Sallie sat long at her sewing, making all alone,
+by a dim light, one of the most heroic little sacrifices that was ever
+offered "in His name." To fully understand it, you must know that Mark
+Calkins had recovered sufficiently to take his place in the office where
+Dr. Everett had secured him an opening, and an employment that would
+enable him to sit, most of the time, thereby giving his injured limb
+a chance to rest. Also, Mark had been admitted to the Monday evening
+gatherings, and was distinguishing himself there by his skill in reading
+and writing. Of course, he had received two tickets, and equally of
+course, being the boy he was, he had planned to take Sallie with him to
+the lecture. Great was Sallie's prospective pleasure! The event of her
+lifetime it was to be. To walk with Mark through the crowded streets,
+both neatly dressed; to walk boldly forward with the throng, and present
+their tickets of admittance to the great hall; hitherto seen only from
+the outside; to move down the long aisles as those who had a right, and
+select their seats unquestioned by police; in short, to be like other
+people--part of the great well-to-do world,--this was Sallie's joy!
+
+She had washed and mended her best calico dress; she had sewed buttons
+on the pretty cape, according to Mrs. Roberts' directions; she had tried
+on the neat bonnet which had been manufactured for her by Mrs. Roberts'
+own fingers, and, altogether, Sallie had probably gotten, during these
+two days, more enjoyment out of Gough's lecture than many others, who
+had heard him a dozen times, ever secured. I do not think it any wonder
+that, as she rocked and sewed, and thought out her great thought, there
+fell tears on the work she was doing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+"FOR YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT MAY COME."
+
+
+This was the thought: Suppose Dirk Colson should want to take his
+sister. Sallie did not believe it in the least probable; she had not
+that amount of faith in Dirk Colson; but suppose he should, Mart could
+not go, for the reason that she would have nothing to wear.
+
+And here was Sallie's pretty cape, which would cover the worst of her
+dress, and her pretty bonnet, which she knew would make a picture of
+Mart; but if she lent them it meant staying at home to Sallie. _Could_
+she do it? Could she bear to think of such a thing? What would Mark say?
+What would he do with his other ticket?
+
+Would she be likely ever to have another chance to go to that wonderful
+hall, and be like other folks?
+
+But _Mart_ had never been anywhere in her life.
+
+"And I," said poor Sallie, catching her breath with a sob, "have been
+often for a walk on the brightest streets, and looked in at the shop
+windows, and everything. I 'most know I will help her to go if I can."
+
+Young Ried had no conception of the sacrifice for which he had asked.
+
+It is little wonder, surely, that Sallie's voice faltered that same
+evening, as she explained to Mart, who had slipped in for a bit of talk,
+that if ever she wanted to go anywhere very bad, she was to let Sallie
+know, and she should have her cape and bonnet to wear. Then she had
+anxiously planned for her a way to mend her dress, so that it would look
+quite well under the cape, and she had even urged:--
+
+"Now do, Mart, if anybody should want you to go don't say you won't; but
+take your chance, for you don't know what may come."
+
+Also she bore with patience Mart's scornful laugh, and emphatic
+statement that no chances ever came to her, and nobody ever wanted her
+to go anywhere. As she talked she grew interested and eloquent;
+urged earnestly that Mart should embrace the first opportunity to go
+somewhere, and wear her new cape and bonnet. At the same time she was
+silent about the lecture. Suppose no chance should come? Then it would
+be doubly hard to Mart to have had the possibility suggested. The same
+delicate reasoning had held her from dwelling on her own prospects. Some
+people would have been very much astonished over the amount of delicate
+consideration for the feelings of others which could be found in that
+little room.
+
+Dirk loitered strangely over his meagre dinner the next afternoon. It
+was late, for he had secured a position at last in one of the printing
+offices, and was apt to take his meals at any hour when it happened to
+be convenient to do without him at the office. He had only been three
+days at work, and Mart had taken little notice of the new departure,
+except to remark grimly that it would not last; but to Sallie she had
+boasted that Dirk had gone to work as hard as anybody. If somebody could
+only have told Dirk that his sister ever boasted of him it might have
+helped him much during these days.
+
+"What are you hanging around for? You've got all there will be to eat in
+this house to-day, and it is time you were off." This was the ungracious
+manner in which the sister took note of his lingering. She was painfully
+afraid that he had already grown weary of regular employment, and the
+fear made her voice gruffer than usual.
+
+His reply amazed her; in fact, it amazed himself:--
+
+"Mart, I've got tickets to a show,--a nice place,--and I want you to go
+along."
+
+"Humph!" said Mart, "that is a likely story!"
+
+Then he grew earnest, displayed his treasures, and urged her
+acceptance--quite astonished with himself the while. _Did_ he really
+want her to go, he wondered, or did he want to please Mrs. Roberts?
+
+You would have been interested, an hour later, to have seen Mart skip up
+the rickety stairs leading to the Calkins abode. You would probably have
+thought that she endangered life or limb by her rapid movements; but
+Mart was used to such staircases, and the news she had to communicate
+required haste.
+
+"There's a chance!" she said, breathless with speed and eagerness;
+"Sallie Calkins, there's a chance, and you'd never guess how. Dirk he
+wants me to go to a show with him this very night! He's got tickets. It
+is a big show,--where all the grand folks go. It is in the very biggest
+hall in this city, and Dirk he says I am to go. Sallie Calkins, do you
+mean it, truly, that I am to wear your lovely new bonnet and cape? Do
+you suppose I can really go anywhere? I don't known why Dirk wants me to
+so bad, but he coaxed and coaxed."
+
+Poor Sallie! She stooped quickly to pick up a pin from the floor, so
+that Mart might not get a glimpse of her eyes with the sudden tears in
+them. Yet, as she stooped, she made her final, grand sacrifice--Mart
+should go!
+
+Then she entered with entire abandon into the preparations. Not only her
+bonnet and cape, but her shoes--new ones that Mark had bought her with
+his first earnings after his illness--were to attend the lecture.
+
+She rejoiced over the excellent fit of the shoes. She did more than
+this. As Mart watched the process of buttoning them, and remarked
+complacently that she shouldn't wonder if Dirk would buy her a pair some
+day, when he earned money enough, she kept her lip from curling with
+an incredulous sneer. You will remember that she had not the slightest
+faith in Dirk.
+
+Neither must I forget that there was another thing to lend--her comb,
+in order that Mart's wonderful yellow hair might be for once reduced
+to something like order. And at the risk of leading you to think that
+Sallie was altogether too "aesthetic" for her position in life, I shall
+have to confess that this was her hardest bit of sacrifice; her comb was
+so new and so pretty!
+
+However, it did its duty on Mart's tawny locks, and the transforming
+effect was marvellous. In fact, when all was ready, the cape adjusted,
+the hat which Mrs. Roberts had shown her how to wear set on the yellow
+head, Sallie said not a word, but went to the packing-box in the corner
+which served as a treasure cupboard, and drew forth the one possession
+about which she had been utterly silent--a little hand-glass which Mark
+had brought her one winter evening just before he was hurt. A cheap,
+little, ugly glass, which you would have turned from in disgust, saying
+that it made your nose awry, and your chin protrude and your eyes
+squint, and was altogether horrid; but, held before Mart's glowing face,
+what a secret did it reveal! Mart looked, and was silent, too; and went
+home in a hushed frame of mind to wait for Dirk. Home was deserted. The
+mother had dragged her wearied body out for a day of "light" work. The
+time had gone by when she was able to do any that people called heavy.
+Where the father was, none of the family knew, and their chief hope
+concerning him was that he would stay away as long as possible.
+
+I find myself longing to give you an idea of what that elegant,
+brilliantly lighted hall, with its brilliant audience, was to this girl,
+and being unable to do it.
+
+When people live so far below us that our every-day experiences are to
+them like a day at the World's Fair, it is very hard indeed to describe
+how our special treats affect them.
+
+It is a treat to everybody to hear Gough. How then can I tell you
+what it was to this girl and her brother? Dirk listened; he must
+have listened well, for long afterward he was able to repeat entire
+paragraphs, and to imitate the manner of the great orator with
+remarkable skill;--yet at the time he would have seemed to a close
+watcher to have been absorbed in another way. He looked at Mart somewhat
+as he had on that Sabbath when his acquaintance with Mrs. Roberts began.
+But the thought which had dimly haunted him that day blossomed on this
+evening. Certainly Mart looked like Mrs. Roberts! It might be folly to
+think so; doubtless the fellows would make no end of fun of him if he
+should ever tell them so, which he meant to take excellent care not to
+do; but the fact remained, that in Sallie's bonnet and cape, and, above
+all, with the waves of hair floating about her, there was a look which
+instantly and strongly reminded him of that lady.
+
+There was another listener at the lecture who was unexpectedly present.
+Part of poor Sallie's trial had been to tell her brother, who had been
+radiant for a week over the prospect of taking her, that she had with
+her own hand put away the blessing. How would Mark take it? Dirk's
+forlorn-looking sister was no favorite of his. I think it would have
+been very difficult to have convinced him that there was a trace of Mrs.
+Roberts in her face.
+
+But such curious creatures are we that it actually hurt Sallie to see
+how quietly he took the great sad news of her sacrifice. After the first
+start of surprise, he seemed preoccupied, and she could almost have
+thought that he did not hear her explanation. She had much ado to keep
+back the tears, but she had made a special little feast for him that
+evening, with a white cloth on the table, and a cup of actual tea,
+and the cup set in a saucer. She was not going to spoil the scene with
+tears; so after a little she said, cheerily:--
+
+"Now you have a chance to do something nice for somebody. Who will you
+take on your ticket?"
+
+"I was thinking," he answered, slowly. "You know it is a temperance
+lecture, and it is by a wonderful man. The fellows in the shop have been
+talking about him all day, and they say you just can't help _thinking_
+when he gets agoing; and I was just thinking, What if we could get _him_
+to go, and he would listen, and get to thinking."
+
+There are no italics that will give you an idea of the peculiar emphasis
+which the boy put on the pronouns. Sallie understood; that "he" could
+mean but one person in the world. But her brother must have answered the
+look on her face, for she spoke no word.
+
+"Sometimes they _do_, Sallie. There was old Pete, you know."
+
+Oh, yes, Sallie knew old Pete; every body in that alley knew him; a
+notorious drunkard once, of the sort which people, even good Christian
+people, are apt to pronounce hopeless; yet now he wore a neat suit of
+clothes every day, and brought home twenty pounds of flour at one
+time in a sack, and bought his coal by the barrel. Wonderful things
+occasionally happened in that alley.
+
+"Yes," said Sally, "that is true; and old Pete wasn't much like him."
+
+The tone spoke volumes. It would have almost angered her, even now, to
+have had it hinted that old Pete was superior to that father, though
+hardly a person acquainted with the two but would have said that there
+was more hope for old Pete, even in his miserable past, than for this
+one.
+
+How they managed it, those two: the difficult task of getting him
+persuaded to go, find then the more difficult task of keeping him
+sufficiently sober to get there, would make a story in itself. I fancy
+there are many such stories in real life which will never get told. The
+probabilities are, if they were, some wise critic would pronounce them
+unnatural and sensational.
+
+Suffice it to say that the task was accomplished, and among the most
+attentive listeners to the great speaker that evening was Sallie's
+father, while she sat at home and mended a badly torn jacket, and
+cried now and then, and was glad and sorry and proud and frightened and
+hopeful by turns all that long evening.
+
+I am not sure but it was better for her that she sat at home. I don't
+know just what she might have done had she been in the hall to see her
+father, at the close of the meeting, shamble forward with the crowd, and
+sign his name to the total abstinence pledge.
+
+She might have screamed out in her excitement, or she might have
+fainted; for although there were those who said--some with a sneer, and
+some with a sigh--that "signing the pledge would not amount to anything;
+the miserable fellow could not keep a pledge to save his life!" Sally
+would have thought nothing of the kind. She had faith in her father's
+word.
+
+It is a wonderful stimulus to have some one who believes in us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+"WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH?"
+
+
+"Do you know," said Mrs. Roberts, addressing Gracie Dennis, who, with
+young Ried, had waited in the hall for her to join them (they were ready
+for the lecture, and were to take up Mr. Roberts on the way): "Do you
+know that I have a desire which I see no way of realizing? If Mr. Colson
+should bring his sister with him to-night I should like so much to get
+possession of her and bring her home with me! But I have been planning
+all day, and see no possible excuse for such an apparently wild
+proceeding."
+
+I want you to notice how naturally Mrs. Roberts said "Mr. Colson"; she
+never talked about Dirk under any other name; she even taught herself to
+_think_ of him as "Mr. Colson." Consequently, when she spoke the name in
+his presence, there was not a trace of unnaturalness in tone or manner.
+The others tried in vain to follow her example. Dr. Everett could
+not speak of him in this way without slight hesitation and a touch of
+embarrassment. "The truth is," said he, "I think _Dirk_ all the week,
+and on the Sabbath I find it impossible to reach up to 'Mr. Colson'
+without an effort." There was no touch of "reaching up" or reaching
+down, about Mrs. Roberts' talk with her pupils. It is possible that this
+is one link in the chain of influence which she was weaving around them.
+
+Gracie Dennis' face expressed curiosity, and when they were seated in
+the carriage, she referred to the cause:--
+
+"But Flossy, I cannot imagine why you should want to do such a thing. It
+will certainly be too late to-night to try to get acquainted with her. I
+should think some time when you could have an unbroken evening would be
+the better for experimenting."
+
+"For some sorts of experimenting it would," Mrs. Roberts answered,
+smiling quietly; "my experiment, in part at least, was to see how the
+pink room might impress her."
+
+"Flossy Shipley!"
+
+When Gracie took refuge in that name her hostess knew she was not only
+much excited, but a trifle disapproving; at such times she made haste to
+change the subject.
+
+It happened that the thing for which she had been planning, shaped
+itself so naturally as to give not the slightest color or premeditation
+to the act.
+
+When Dirk and his sister worked their way through the dense crowds to
+the open air they discovered that it was raining heavily. For almost
+the first time in her life the fact struck terror to Mart Colson's soul!
+Ordinarily no duck could have been more indifferent to a rain storm
+than herself. On this evening she gave vent to her dismay in short,
+expressive words:
+
+"Sallie's bonnet!" "And cape!" This last, after a moment's thought. "And
+shoes!" she added, as the magnitude of her troubles grew upon her.
+
+Drawn up close to the sidewalk stood a carriage and a pair of horses
+that Dirk could not help giving admiring attention to, despite the rain.
+A fine horse always held his attention. No thought of the occupants of
+the carriage came to him, not even after a head leaned forward and a
+hand beckoned; of course it was beckoning to somebody else. Then a clear
+voice spoke:--
+
+"Mr. Colson!"
+
+He started quickly forward; there was but one person who ever said "Mr.
+Colson," and besides, that voice belonged only to one.
+
+"I want your sister to go home with me. It is raining so hard that she
+ought not to walk, and I should like very much to have her stay with me
+to-night. Won't you ask her to, please?"
+
+If Mrs. Roberts had been asking a favor, instead of conferring one, her
+voice could not have been sweeter and more winning.
+
+Dirk went back to his sister, too much bewildered by the state of
+affairs even to express surprise. "Mart," he said, "she wants you."
+
+A quick spring to the sidewalk, and young Ried was standing beside Mart.
+"It is raining so hard," he explained, "Mrs. Roberts would be very glad
+if you would come."
+
+And Mart, thinking of nothing at all, save Sallie's bonnet and cape and
+shoes, turned toward the waiting carriage.
+
+Mr. Ried had his umbrella raised, and carefully shielded the bonnet,
+assisting its wearer to enter the carriage with as much courtesy as he
+had bestowed on Gracie Dennis but a few moments before. Not a movement
+was lost on the watching Dirk.
+
+When the door was closed and the goodnights had been said,--Mrs. Roberts
+leaning from the carriage again for that purpose,--and when the horses
+had dashed around the corner, he still occupied his position on the
+curbstone, gazing down the street, gazing at nothing unless he saw a
+reflection of his own bewildered thoughts.
+
+"Come!" said a policeman who knew him, and was therefore suspicious,
+"What are you hanging about here for? Move on!"
+
+"Humph!" said Dirk, as he slowly took his hands out of his pockets,
+eyes still fixed on the corner where the carriage had turned, "what if I
+should?"
+
+Something in his eye would have told Mrs. Roberts, had she been there,
+that he meant more than moving down the street; though that he presently
+did, regardless of wind and rain.
+
+Meantime the bonnet and cape in the carriage stepped somewhat into the
+background, and the girl who wore them allowed herself once more to
+think of her individuality, and to wonder at her position. She sat bolt
+upright on the edge of the soft, gray seat, and gazed about her as well
+as she could by the glimmer of the street lamps. She in a carriage! Mart
+Colson sitting on a back seat, beside a grand lady, and rolling down the
+avenue! Who would have supposed that such a thing could have happened to
+Sallie Calkins' bonnet? Mrs. Roberts recognized the bonnet and cape with
+a smile of satisfaction. She had studied much over the possibilities of
+this girl's costume. Was it probable that she had anything suitable to
+wear to a lecture? She had passed the cellar where the girl lived but
+once, and had had but one glimpse of her; yet these glimpses had been
+enough to render it highly improbable that she had any street costume.
+Then, had Mrs. Roberts canvassed the possibilities of getting a
+street-suit for her, there were apparently insurmountable difficulties
+in the way. She was too utterly unacquainted with the ground to venture.
+Besides, there were reasons for believing that anything of value would
+find its way from that cellar to a pawnbroker's in a very short space of
+time.
+
+Having spent hours over many different schemes, and rejected each one as
+liable to bring disaster, Mrs. Roberts was obliged to betake herself to
+prayer. If the watching Saviour wanted her to work through the medium
+of this lecture on this particular child of His, He could certainly see
+that she was present; could furnish her with clothes to wear, either
+through herself or some other of His servants. She would wait and watch.
+
+Not once had she thought of Sallie Calkins and the new bonnet that her
+own fingers had helped to fashion; yet here it was beside her on the
+head of this girl, toward whom she was drawn! The fact made Mrs. Roberts
+radiant.
+
+She said almost nothing to the startled prisoner at her side, beyond a
+murmured, "So glad you let me carry you home with me!" Then she drew a
+bright-colored wrap about her, and left her to her amazement, while the
+eager tongues of the rest of the party talked continuously.
+
+By the way, you are not acquainted with the pink room, I think? You
+should see it before it is invaded for the night. Large, it is. I think
+little people sometimes have a peculiar fondness for large rooms;
+Mrs. Roberts had. The walls were tinted with what might be called
+a suggestion of pink, with just a touch of sunset gold about the
+mouldings.
+
+The carpet was soft and rich; it gave back no sound of footfall. It was
+strewn with pink buds; some just opening into beauty, some half-blown.
+Accustomed to the sight of elegant carpets as you are, you would
+almost have stooped to pick one of these buds, they looked so real. The
+curtains to the windows were white, but lined with rose pink; they were
+looped back with knots of pink ribbons. The bed was a marvel of pink
+and white drapery; so was the dressing-bureau. The easy-chairs were
+upholstered in soft grays with a pinkish tinge; and the tidies, lavishly
+displayed, were all of pink and white. There was nothing conventional
+about the room. A professional would have been shocked by some of its
+appointments. Many a lady of wealth, accustomed to having things as
+"they" decree, would have been more than doubtful over the pink ribbons
+and the profusion of white drapery. Aside from the carpet, and a
+choice picture or two, there was nothing especially expensive about the
+furnishings. It was simply a room in which Mrs. Roberts had allowed her
+own sweet little fancies to take her captive.
+
+The gas was lighted; the door was ajar into a toilet-room; a lavish
+display of great, beautiful towels could be seen as you peeped in, and
+various touches told of an expected guest. Flowers were blossoming
+on the mantel, and a tiny vase which stood on a bracket near the
+toilet-stand held a single rose of a peculiar hue and perfume, which had
+blossomed for this hour. At least, Mrs. Roberts thought so.
+
+Into this room, in all its purity and beauty, went Sallie Calkins'
+bonnet and cape and her strong, new, thick shoes; and the wearer thereof
+pushed the bonnet away from her flushed face, and stood and looked about
+her.
+
+Down stairs they discussed in curious tones--not her, but the mistress
+of the mansion.
+
+"Flossy, I do think you are too queer for anything! Why don't you have
+her go to Katy's room? Katy is away for the night, you know, and I'm
+sure her room is as neat and pretty as can be. Imagine what a contrast
+it would be to anything that she has ever seen! Mr. Ried, you ought to
+see the room into which she has been put. There isn't a more elegant one
+in the house. Some of its furnishings are so delicate that I hardly like
+to touch them. What sort of a disease is it that has taken Mrs.
+Roberts, do you suppose, to send her there? Flossy, she will get no rest
+to-night; she will be afraid of that immaculate bed."'
+
+This, of course, was Gracie Dennis.
+
+Mr. Roberts looked from her to his wife,--his face smiling, curious, yet
+with a sort of at-rest expression.
+
+"What do you hope to accomplish, Flossy?" He asked the question as
+one who was pleased to watch a new experiment, yet felt sure that the
+experimenter had an end to attain which would justify any measures that
+she might take. Mr. Roberts had believed in his wife when he chose her
+from all others; but he was learning to believe in her in a peculiar
+sense, as one led by a hand that made no mistakes.
+
+She turned to answer his question; her face bright, yet half puzzled:--
+
+"I am not sure that I can explain to you what I hoped for," she said; "I
+caught the idea from Mr. Ried."
+
+"From me!" and the young man thus mentioned looked so astonished and
+incredulous that Gracie laughed.
+
+"He is sure he never thought of anything so wild," she said, gayly.
+"Flossy, you must find a better excuse than that."
+
+"Yet it was something that he said. Do you remember telling me, not
+long ago, about your sister's idea that all the world had lost its place
+because of sin; that God intended everything here to be beautiful, and
+all life to be bright with joy, and that Satan had gotten hold of men's
+lives, and was trying to ruin them, and that every beautiful creation
+was God's picture to the world of what his intention had been? I'm
+telling it poorly; but it made a very deep impression. This girl's face,
+you know, is beautiful. It is what God meant some faces to be; at least,
+I mean he has given her the frame for a face of beauty. I have a vague,
+half-understood sort of wish to give her a glimpse of harmony; something
+that will fit her golden hair and lovely complexion; and see what she
+will think of God's idea, and whether she will understand that it is sin
+which has spoiled it, and whether she is willing to serve the author of
+her ruin. I don't believe I am making myself plain, but I know what I
+mean, at least."
+
+"If we do not, I think it must be because you have caught a thought from
+God, that we are not able to reach up to."
+
+It was Mr. Roberts who made this reply. Something in his wife's
+experiment had deeply moved him.
+
+As for Mr. Ried, his face lighted, as it always did, at the mention of
+his sister's name.
+
+"Sometimes I almost think that it is Ester still at work, and that He
+lets her work through this woman."
+
+It was what he said to Gracie Dennis in an aside. Mrs. Roberts had
+already gone to see in person to the comfort of her guest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+"O LORD, TAKE DIRK, TOO!"
+
+
+She found her standing before the mirror. By reason of the fact that she
+understood no pretty trick of braid or curl, her long yellow hair hung
+just as Nature had made it, with no waves or ripples save those which
+had grown with its growth. It fell about her now like a sunset cloud.
+She had taken from the vase near at hand a rose, which she had pushed
+in among the masses of hair, with no knowledge as to how it should be
+arranged, or, indeed, thought; yet the effect was something which made
+Mrs. Roberts give an involuntary start of admiration.
+
+Still it was evident that, though apparently gazing at herself, she was
+thinking away beyond herself. It is doubtful if at that moment she saw
+the flower, or her own reflection, or knew that she was looking. Her
+eyes had the faraway expression which one sometimes sees in great power
+on faces like hers. She turned as Mrs. Roberts, having softly knocked
+and received no answer, softly entered, and her first words indicated
+the intensity of her thought, whatever it was:--
+
+"Dirk has _got_ to go there!"
+
+"Go where?" asked Mrs. Roberts, startled out of the words she meant to
+speak; startled by the hint of power in the voice and manner.
+
+"Of whom are you thinking, my dear girl? and where do you want him to
+go?"
+
+"I'm thinking about Dirk, ma'am; I thought about him all the evening;
+the man made me; and I've made up my mind; he's _got_ to go to heaven!"
+
+I suppose I cannot give you an idea of the force in her voice. It was
+as though a resolution, from which there could be no appeal, had been
+taken, and the person resolving felt her own power to accomplish. It
+was altogether an unexpected answer to Mrs. Roberts. She did not know
+whether to be half-frightened or to laugh.
+
+She sat down in one of the easy-chairs to study the girl, and consider
+what answer to make. Mart, meantime, turned back to the survey of
+herself in the mirror, or to the survey of whatever she saw there, and
+continued talking:--
+
+"I never knew much about heaven. You may guess that, if you have ever
+been in our alley. Only lately, Sallie Calkins she's been telling me
+what you told her; and I had a kind of notion that you must know what
+you was talking about, and that it was for rich folks and grand folks
+like you; but the man told about that Madge, you know, to-night--an
+awful drunkard and swearer, and all that--how she reformed and went to
+heaven. Dirk ain't no drunkard; but he will be. Everybody says he will,
+because father is such an awful one. Mother, she's never had no hope of
+him. She says father didn't drink till he was most twenty, and then he
+begun; and she's looking for Dirk to begin, and I haven't thought he
+could help it either. What if he doesn't care for it much yet? He will,
+it's likely. I've never told nobody that, not even Sallie, and I've been
+mad at mother every time she said any such thing; but all the time I've
+been expecting him to begin; and I know well enough, when once they
+_begin_, how it goes on. But that man to-night told things that made a
+difference. He says that God can keep them from wanting to drink, and
+help them right straight along; and that they can go to heaven as well
+as the next one. I've wanted nice things for Dirk all my life; but I
+never saw no way to get them, and it made me mad. To-night I saw a way,
+but I never had no kind of a notion how heaven looked till I come into
+this room, and see the light and the flowers and the shine, and another
+room spread out there in the glass: and now I know, and Dirk shall go!"
+
+Mrs. Roberts was in no mood for laughing, the tears were dropping slowly
+on the flower she held in her hand. Mart saw in the glass just then a
+sight which seemed to add to her surprise. She turned wondering eyes on
+her hostess.
+
+"What are you crying for?" she asked. "Don't spoil the flower; it is
+like the one Dirk bought me once. He said you sent it to me. I kept it
+most a week. I took it over to Sallie's, and she got fresh water for it
+every day, somehow; and it was then she begun to tell me what you said
+about heaven, and I thought if God had made such flowers as that for
+you, it was likely he had made a heaven for you; but I didn't believe it
+was for Dirk till to-night, and I didn't have no kind of a notion how
+it looked till just now. Do you _believe_ what that man said--that
+folks like Dirk can go? Of course, if Madge went, why Dirk would have a
+_right_. He is bad just because he _has_ to be. He never had no chance
+to be anything else; and he ain't very bad, anyhow--nothing to compare
+with some." Her voice was almost fierce in its earnestness; she was
+beginning to resent the creeping doubt that Mrs. Roberts' silence
+suggested.
+
+Careful words must be spoken now. What if this awakening soul should be
+turned aside! No wonder that the unspoken words were prayers.
+
+"Dirk has a _right_ to go to heaven," she said, steadily, sweetly;
+"there is not the shadow of a doubt as to his right. No one in the
+world--not Satan himself--can deprive him of it; and it is not only his
+_right_, but his duty to go."
+
+"Then he shall!"
+
+I wish I could give you an idea of the strength in the girl's voice. It
+almost carried conviction with it to Mrs. Roberts' heart.
+
+"Come and sit down," she said, and she drew her towards one of the low
+cushions. If Mart sat on that, her head would be just where a gentle
+hand could stroke the masses of hair.
+
+"Let me talk with you about this. You are mistaken in one thing. Dirk is
+very bad. He is bad enough to shut him out of heaven forever."
+
+The girl started, and tried to fling off the caressing hand.
+
+"So are you," said the gentle voice.
+
+"Oh, _me_! Don't talk about me! Whoever said I wasn't bad? Let me go; I
+want to go home. I don't care how hard it rains."
+
+"And so am I," continued the gentle voice.
+
+The girl on the cushion ceased struggling to free herself from the
+caressing touch, and remained motionless.
+
+"Let me tell you of something that we have each done a great many times.
+We have been asked and urged and coaxed day after day, and year after
+year, to accept an invitation to go to this very heaven, and we have
+paid no attention at all; and this, after Jesus Christ had given His
+life to make a way for us to go. Is not that being bad?"
+
+"Dirk he never had no invitation--never heard anything about it."
+
+"Yes, he has," speaking with quiet firmness. "The Lord Jesus Christ told
+me to invite him, and I have done so a great many times, and he has made
+no answer; and Sallie Calkins has invited you, and you have treated it
+in just the same way."
+
+"I didn't believe it."
+
+"Isn't that being bad? What has He ever done that you should refuse to
+believe His word, when He died an awful death to prove to you that He
+was in earnest?"
+
+"You said Dirk had a _right_ to go."
+
+"So he has. Jesus Christ has given him a right, if he will. I have
+invited you to my house, and asked you to spend the night in this room,
+and sleep in this bed. Has any person a right to keep you from doing
+so?"
+
+"No." An emphatic nod of the head, and a lingering, almost loving look
+at the white bed behind her.
+
+"Then cannot you truthfully say that you have a _right_ to be here? My
+dear girl, it is so faint an illustration of what Jesus Christ has
+done to give you a right to heaven, that I almost wonder at your
+understanding it. But can you imagine something of how I should have
+felt had I urged you to come to me night after night, for weeks and
+years, and you had turned from me with no answer, or else with scorn?"
+
+"You wouldn't have kept on asking me." Mart spoke with the assurance of
+one who had firm faith in her statement.
+
+"No, I presume I should not. I would have said after the third or fourth
+invitation, 'If she really will not have anything to do with me I cannot
+help it,' and I should have tried to forget you. This is one of the many
+differences between Christ and me. He waits, and asks, and _asks_. How
+long will you keep Him waiting?"
+
+I have given you only the beginning of the conversation. It was long ere
+it was concluded.
+
+Down stairs Mr. Ried waited as long as he could, curious to know the
+result of Mart's first impressions. Then he went away, and Gracie went
+to her room, and the house settled into quiet, and Mr. Roberts, in the
+library, waited for his wife, while she told over again, with tender
+words and simple illustrations, the "old, old story," so fitted to the
+wants of the world.
+
+How many times has there been a like result.
+
+It was midnight when they knelt together, the fair child of luxury and
+the child of poverty; but the Saviour, who intercedes for both, bent
+His ear, and heard again the cry of a groping soul, seeking Him out of
+darkness, and held out His loving, never-failing arms, able to reach
+down to her depth, and received her to himself. Who can tell that story?
+Who can describe how heaven seemed to the girl just then?
+
+It was not what Mrs. Roberts had expected. I cannot even say that it was
+what she had hoped for. Her faith had not reached to such a height
+at all. She could hardly have put into words what she hoped. When she
+ventured to try to tell it to the friends in the parlor, and to you, I
+doubt whether you understood. She thought to get a hold on the girl;
+to show her something of God's beauty and love, as it shone through
+herself; to make her long after something her life did not give, and
+to gradually lead her to seek after satisfaction in Christ. A long
+process--something that should unfold gradually, with many discouraging
+drawbacks, and some days that would look like utter failures. She had
+schooled herself to be prepared for this, but she had not looked for Him
+to exert His mighty power to save in a moment. How it had touched her
+to find a soul, hungry, not for itself, but for a brother, I shall not
+attempt to tell. The first words she said, after she went back to her
+waiting husband, a little after midnight, were these:--
+
+"He could not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. I
+think that is what is the matter with the world to-day. I wonder if He
+would not be pleased with one who could throw herself at His feet with
+a childlike abandon of faith, and expect wonders, yes, and
+impossibilities, just as a child feels that _anything_ can be done by
+father? God has shamed my faith to-night. It is as though I had
+asked for a crumb of bread, and he gave me the entire loaf. That girl
+up-stairs has not heard of Him before as a Saviour for _her_; has never
+thought of such a thing, or, at least, dreamed of its possibility, and
+yet she has given herself to Him. And Evan, what do you think were the
+first words she said? 'O Lord, take Dirk, too!' She is on her knees at
+this moment praying for him. If you could have seen her face when it
+first dawned upon her that she could tell God about him, and ask for His
+mighty power to be exerted in his behalf, it would have been a picture
+for your lifetime. Oh, Evan, Evan, why can we not expect great things of
+God?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+"AN AWFUL PROBLEM"
+
+
+Isn't it strange, the ways the Lord takes to answer prayers?
+
+Much prayer had been made for Dirk Colson, but few had thought of his
+sister. Sallie Calkins, it is true, had come with trembling steps into
+the light of Christ's love, and had immediately desired to have Mart
+enjoy it with her, but was very trembling and doubting as to her ability
+to reach Mart, or to influence her in the right direction. She sent the
+bonnet and cape to the lecture with a prayer, but she did not look for
+the prayer to be answered. Verily, He has to be content with faith "less
+than a grain of mustard-seed."
+
+Was the rest of the story an answer to prayer? We are to remember that
+He has strange ways. Events startling enough in their import followed
+each other in rapid succession. In the first place, Dirk's father, poor,
+wrecked man, returned no more. Whether he had wandered among the network
+of railroads which lined the southern portion of the city, and lost his
+life there, or whether he had fallen into the river, or just how he had
+disappeared, could not be discovered. There were three men killed by an
+accident on the road one night, but their disfigured bodies were buried
+before Dirk heard of it. There was a man seen struggling in the water
+off the lower wharf one evening, but he sank before help could reach
+him, and his body was not recovered. There were half a dozen men killed
+by a boiler explosion, but that was not heard of in time to look into
+it. There were so many ways in which the wreck might have gone out
+of life and left no sign. They were safe in supposing that he was
+intoxicated, and that was about all they could be perfectly sure of,
+concerning him; that, and the fact that he came no more. Of
+course, there was no such search for him as is made for the man of
+respectability and position. To one who had some idea of the worth of a
+soul, it was pitiful to see what a tiny ripple this disappearance made
+on the surface of life.
+
+A moment of startled questioning by those who lived in the immediate
+neighborhood; a few women with aprons thrown over their heads
+congregating in groups around the pump, or before the door of the
+bakery; a crowd of dirty children, stopping their play for a moment, and
+speaking lower;--then the tide of noisy, fighting, swearing life went
+on.
+
+One was gone out from it. Whither? None knew, few cared; and there were
+such crowds and _crowds_ left, how could he be missed?
+
+One missed him,--an abused, insulted, downtrodden woman. One whom, years
+before, he had promised to love and cherish until death parted them,
+and had broken the vows almost as soon as taken, and never renewed them
+again. Yet that woman wept bitter tears over his absence; watched for
+him, listened nightly for his staggering footsteps; rose up from her
+heap of straw in the corner in the middle of the night, and set wide
+open the cellar door, and listened to the angry voices floating down to
+her from some drunken brawl further up the street, if, perchance, she
+might hear _his_; listened, and held her breath, and quivered all over
+with hope and fear: then crept back to her miserable bed, covered
+her head with the ragged quilt, and cried herself into a few hours of
+forgetfulness.
+
+"She is crying herself to death about him!" Mart said. There was
+surprise mingled with awe in her voice.
+
+She told it to Dirk, and the two stood thoughtfully for a moment looking
+out at the one window. They carefully avoided looking at each other.
+They did not understand. To them there was simply relief in the father's
+absence. They had no trace of love for him in their hearts. The word
+"father" meant nothing to them but misery. Still there was that in them
+which respected the mother's grief; they tried to shield her. Dirk, of
+his own thoughtfulness, brought home a bit of tea in a paper, and bought
+half a pint of milk at the corner bakery; and Mart took lessons of
+Sallie, and made a delicate slice of toast, and borrowed Sallie's one
+cup and saucer to serve the tea in. She was disappointed that the mother
+cried, and could hardly drink the tea. She was even almost vexed that
+the mother said with tears that "poor Jock always did like tea so
+_much_, and she had always thought that maybe if he could have had it
+hot and strong he would not have taken to the drink."
+
+Mart had no faith in this, no belief that anything in her father's past
+life could have kept him from the drink; but she held herself silent,
+and let the tears have their way. All the time she had in her heart one
+great solemn regret. There was one who would have helped her father;
+would and could have saved him, even from rum. What if she, his
+daughter, had known the Lord Jesus, and could have taken the miserable
+father to Him and had him transformed! Mart had no doubt about _His_
+power to do it. An unanswerable argument had been given her. No infidel
+need try to assail her now.
+
+But the father! Why had everybody kept silence, and let him sink away?
+
+Awful!
+
+Why had not she known Christ? Why had she not listened to Sallie but a
+week before? Why had not Dirk learned the way and saved his father? An
+awful problem! Mart's life must henceforth be shadowed by it.
+
+Meantime what was Mrs. Roberts to do for this new-born soul? How was she
+to help her, and, through her, to help her brother?
+
+She, in her elegant home, sat down to study this problem.
+
+Life at East Fifty-fifth Street was so far removed from life in the
+alley that she knew nothing about the missing father. Days passed,
+and, busy with many claims of society, she had made no movement toward
+helping the girl, and knew as yet no way to do it; yet she carried
+her on her heart. Monday evening came and went, and still she had been
+detained from any effort.
+
+One afternoon her thoughts shaped themselves into action. She would go
+and see Mart. She would get Dirk to protect her in her journey down the
+alley; also, in accomplishing this, she would accomplish another thing.
+She would call on Dirk at his place of business. The chief of the office
+was a Christian man; yet she had reason to believe that he knew less
+about Dirk, and cared much less for him, than he did for his little dog,
+who sat in the window and barked at passers-by.
+
+She had no difficulty in securing attention. Ladies were not often
+admitted, but a card bearing the name "Mrs. Evan Roberts" was sufficient
+passport among any of the business men of the city.
+
+Mr. Stone was more than ready, he was eager to serve her. What could
+he do for the elegantly-dressed lady whose carriage waited at the door,
+while she came in person among the bales and boxes? Her business must be
+urgent.
+
+It was. Could she speak with Mr. Colson just for a moment? She would not
+detain him long; but she wished to make an appointment with him for the
+next day.
+
+"Mr. Colson!" The chief and his perplexed assistant looked at each other
+thoughtfully, and shook their heads. There was no such person connected
+with their establishment. She must have the wrong number.
+
+No; she was positive.
+
+"He told me only three days ago that he was in your employ. He is on the
+third floor, I believe."
+
+The gentlemen looked at each other again.
+
+"Colson!" repeated Mr. Stone. "There is certainly a mistake. Briggs is
+in charge on the third floor front, and Dickson has the back rooms. No,
+Mrs. Roberts, we have no such name among our men, I am positive."
+
+But Mrs. Roberts gently held her ground. She was sure she was not
+mistaken, for she had talked with him about his work and the different
+men. He was in Mr. Briggs' department, she felt quite sure. He was not a
+foreman, she explained, but quite a young man; had been there but a
+few weeks, and Dr. Everett was the one who had interested himself in
+securing the place.
+
+Light of some sort began to dawn on the perplexed faces of the
+gentlemen.
+
+"Can she mean black Dirk, do you suppose?" questioned the elder, looking
+hard at his associate.
+
+Then came the sweet voice of the visitor.
+
+"Oh, no; he is not a colored gentleman. His name is Colson,--Mr. Derrick
+Colson."
+
+"That is the one," said the gentleman, quickly. Should he laugh or be
+annoyed?
+
+It took but a moment after that to summon "Mr. Derrick Colson." Black
+he was, certainly, not only by reason of his naturally dark skin, but
+because of the grimy work, whatever it was, which fell to his lot. His
+big apron was soiled with ink and oil, and daubed with bits of dark
+color which seemed not to be either.
+
+He came forward with his usual shambling gait, and an additional shade
+of sullenness apparent on his face, but it glowed a swarthy red when he
+recognized the lady.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Colson," she said, and she held forth her
+delicately-gloved hand.
+
+His own went forward to meet it; then drew suddenly back.
+
+"It is not clean enough," he said; "there's ink or something on it."'
+
+But the lavender kids were not withdrawn.
+
+"Never mind the ink; a little honest soil never hurt anybody," and the
+rough, dark hand was taken in her own.
+
+Then occurred a few moments' chat; at least the lady chatted with
+easy familiarity. She referred to the "Social Parlors," to the "Monday
+Evenings," to Miss Dennis' "Musicale," to half a dozen themes about
+which the bewildered gentlemen within hearing knew nothing.
+
+Could it be that the low-voiced, gentle lady was trying to give _them_ a
+lesson as well as to talk with Dirk? Finally she made an appointment for
+the next afternoon. Would his employer be so kind as to excuse him for
+an hour, if convenient? Certainly, it would be convenient to please Mrs.
+Evan Roberts.
+
+Dirk was very much embarrassed. He blushed and stammered, and did not
+know how to answer any of the kindnesses; but there were two things
+during the interview which gave Mrs. Roberts more pleasure than you,
+perhaps, are able to understand.
+
+One was, that at sight of her he had suddenly snatched off the paper cap
+which he wore, and the other, that having set it again on his head as
+he turned from her, he glanced back from the door, and, in answer to her
+bow and smile, lifted the ugly little cap with an air that was an exact
+imitation of young Ried, and yet so well done that you would not have
+thought of it as an imitation.
+
+Mrs. Roberts could have clapped her hands; but she did not. Instead she
+said, sweetly:--
+
+"I am very glad that Mr. Colson is in the employ of a Christian
+gentleman. He is greatly in need of help from all Christian sources, and
+I am sure there is that in him which will respond to judicious effort."
+
+Then she let the bewildered man attend her to her carriage, and went her
+way rejoicing.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+But there were plans being laid for her at that moment of which she knew
+nothing.
+
+To-morrow she would go and see the golden-haired girl. In a
+neatly-packed basket she had certain things, among them a bonnet and a
+sack that she knew would fit the hair and face, and she believed would
+give Mart pleasure. If only she could contrive a natural way to give
+them to her, and there could be planned ways of keeping them safe from
+the pawnbroker's grasp. All this time she knew nothing of the fact
+that the hand which had grasped for years to furnish the pawnbroker was
+stilled forever. It had not once occurred to Dirk to tell her. It is a
+solemn fact that in this greater excitement he had actually forgotten
+it! As for the "Christian employer," he did not know of it to tell. He
+had not so much as known whether black Dirk had a father or not. He was
+simply a street rough, whom Dr. Everett was trying experiments with; and
+because there was an unusual pressure on the office, and poor help was
+better than none, he was helping the experiment.
+
+However, when Dirk went home from the office that night he remembered
+that the father was gone.
+
+Mart met him at the door, a look of solemn determination on her face.
+
+"Dirk," she said, "_she's_ going; as sure as you live, she's going.
+She's been bad all the afternoon. Sallie says that Mark's doctor will
+come to see her,--she knows he will, and Mark shall go for him as soon
+as he comes home; but I don't mean to wait for no doctor. I want _her_
+to come. _She_ knows the way, and I want mother to be told it right,
+so there won't be no mistake. You go for her, Dirk, right off straight.
+There ain't any time to lose, for I tell you now she's _going_. She's
+been failing all along, you know, and she has just cried herself down.
+Dirk, will you go for _her_ as fast as you can?"
+
+The confusion of pronouns might have bewildered you. They did not Dirk.
+"_Her_" meant to him exactly what it did to Mart. He could not think how
+it could possibly mean any other person. But this was astounding news
+about his mother! It was one thing to have a father disappear, whom he
+had simply feared, until he had learned to hate; it was quite another
+thing to talk about the going away of the only one who had ever tried to
+mend his clothes, and who had sat up nights to wash them when she could.
+
+He strode past Mart into the wretched room, and looked at the bed in the
+corner.
+
+The mother was asleep, but on her face was a strange change--a something
+that he had never seen there before, worn and sunken as it always was.
+It made him understand Mart's fears.
+
+"I'll go," he said huskily, and rushed from the house.
+
+"_Her_" carriage was just rolling down the avenue as his swift feet
+cleared the alley. He knew the horses. He was a little ahead of them;
+but it was not probable that the driver would stop for him.
+
+"Won't you stop that carriage?" he said in breathless haste to a
+policeman at the corner; "I've got to speak to the lady that's in it."
+
+"I'll be quite likely to, no doubt!" said the policeman, in quiet irony.
+"What rascality are you up to now, Dirk? _Can't_ you be decent for a few
+days?"
+
+But Dirk was trying to free himself from the detaining hand, and threw
+up one arm in a sort of despairing gesture to the coachman. Mr. Roberts
+caught the signal, recognized the face, and in another moment the horses
+stood restlessly by the curb-stone, and Dirk, his embarrassment gone,
+told his brief story rapidly.
+
+"Father went off a spell ago, and never came back; and mother, she is
+sickly, and it set her crying; and she's _going_, Mart thinks, and I
+guess it's so; and Mart wants you to come and show her the way. She said
+you knew how, and you would come."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+"MAY SHE GO WITH ME?"
+
+
+Of course she went. And, of course, now that the truth was known,
+much was done. Dr. Everett was summoned. The wretched bed, with its
+distressing rags, were turned out together, and a comfortable one took
+its place. Broths and teas and jellies and physical comfort of every
+kind were furnished, and the doctor did his best to battle with the
+disease that long years of want and misery had fastened upon their
+victim. It was all too late, of course. It was true, what Mr. Roberts
+sadly said, that half of the effort, expended years or even months
+before, might have saved the poor, tortured life; but now!
+
+How awful those "too lates" are! Isn't it a wonder that we ever take the
+risk of having one ring in our ears forever? There was one thing over
+which some of these Christian workers shed tears of joy.
+
+"_I_ am too late," said Dr. Everett, "but my Master has as much power
+to-day as ever. He can save her."
+
+And He did. The poor, tired woman, who years before had remembered an
+old story well enough to name her one daughter "Martha," in memory of
+the one who "loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus," roused her dull
+heart at the mention of His name, and listened while the wonderful story
+was told her that He loved not only Martha and her sister, but her own
+poor, sinful, wrecked self; loved her enough to reach after her, and
+call and wait, and prepare for her a home in His glory.
+
+Dear! Why has not some one come with the news before? Surely she would
+have listened during these long, sad years. Well, they made the way
+plain. Neither was it a difficult thing to do. The woman was weary and
+travel-stained and afraid, and longed for nothing so much as a place of
+refuge. She knew that she was a sinner; she knew that she was, and had
+been for many a year, powerless to help herself. Why should she not hail
+with joy the story of a great and willing Helper?
+
+"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden." She opened her
+eyes with a gleam of eagerness to hear the words. "Weary?"' Yes, indeed!
+"Heavy laden?" Who more so? If the call was not for her, whom _could_ it
+mean? What else? Why, what, but the glorious old story, "I will give you
+rest?" What wonder that she closed her eyes and smiled! What wonder that
+the first words after that were: "I'll come; show me how." And He showed
+her how.
+
+"Dirk," the sister said, when the mother had gone the last and only
+restful journey of her life, "Dirk, _she_ went to heaven; and I'm going.
+I've been wanting to tell you for more than a week, but I didn't know
+how. _He_ asked me to, and I'm going. Now _you_ must. 'Cause we never
+had a good time here, and she'll kind of expect it in heaven, and be
+looking out for you; she always looked out for you, Dirk."
+
+Then did Dirk lose his half-sullen self-control, and great tears rolled
+down his dark cheeks.
+
+But the sister shed no tears. She had serious business to attend to.
+Dirk must go to heaven now without fail.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day there was an unusual scene in the alley. It was no uncommon
+thing to see a coffin carried out from there, but on this day there was
+a hearse, and a minister in Dr. Everett's carriage, and Dirk and his
+sister, in neat apparel, came out together and were seated in Mr.
+Roberts' carriage; and all the boys of the Monday-evening Class walked
+arm in arm after the slow-moving carriages; and the children of the
+alley stopped their placing and their fighting, and the women stood
+silent in doorways, and took, most of them, their very first lesson in
+the proprieties of life.
+
+"She's got a ride in a carriage at last, poor soul!" said one, thinking
+of the worn-out body in the coffin; and another said: "I wonder what
+poor old Jock would think of all this?"
+
+But the scene made its impression, and left its lesson. I think the
+voices of some of them were lower during the rest of the day because of
+it.
+
+What next? It was the question that filled Mrs. Roberts' thoughts.
+Something must be done for Dirk and Mart. That fearful alley was no
+place for human beings; certainly not for these two. But what to do with
+them was a question not easily answered.
+
+Various plans were proposed. Sallie Calkins' two rooms were much better
+than the cellar in which the Colson family had lived; and there was a
+chance to rent a room next to Sallie's, with a closet opening from it
+for Dirk. How would it do to have them board with Sallie? The suggestion
+came first from Gracie Dennis, and sounded reasonable. Mrs. Roberts was
+almost ashamed to dislike it as much as she did. Sallie's neat rooms
+were _home_ now. The father, for this length of time at least, held to
+his pledge; and son and daughter were radiant over him. He had gone to
+work, and already the two rooms were taking on an air of greater comfort
+because of the little things that he proudly brought home.
+
+Sallie was doing her part wisely. The table was regularly laid now, with
+a white cloth and knives and forks; and two new cups and plates had been
+added to the dishes. Would it be wise to invade this home just at this
+juncture and introduce boarders? Mrs. Roberts did not believe that it
+would. It was not as though the father had an established character,
+and stood ready to shield his children; they were still acting the
+protective, and he had but too recently risen from the depths where Dirk
+and Mart had laughed and jeered at him. Besides, the rooms were located
+in that dreadful alley; and, do what she would, Mrs. Roberts could
+not feel that that dangerously-beautiful face could find a safe
+abiding-place in that alley. Some other way must be thought of.
+
+Their immediate future was arranged through the intervention of a house
+agent; for even that dreary and desolate cellar had its agent, who was
+eager to secure his rent. He was unwise enough to undertake to interview
+Mrs. Roberts as she descended from her carriage, not long after it had
+followed Mart's mother to the grave.
+
+He considered this effort of his a special stroke of business energy.
+He wanted to be patient with the poor, he said; there wasn't an agent
+in the city who waited for them oftener than he did; but business was
+business, and it stood to reason that he could not depend on a fellow
+like Dirk. It had been bad enough when the mother was there, but
+he couldn't think of such a thing as risking it now. What was he to
+understand? Did she mean to rent the room for them, and for how long?
+Because it was his duty to look out for the future.
+
+What would be more natural than for Mrs. Roberts, with those two young
+things looking on, to say that of course she would be responsible for
+the rent as long as they lived in the room? Thus reasoned the house
+agent.
+
+Instead of which, Mrs. Roberts turned toward Dirk, her face flushed over
+the hardness of a man who could stop a boy and girl on such business on
+their way from their mother's grave, and said:--
+
+"If I were in your place, Mr. Colson, I should not rent these rooms at
+all. They are not suited to your sister's needs. I am sure you can do
+better."
+
+The agent was disgusted. "_Mr._ Colson," indeed! The disreputable young
+scamp whom nobody trusted. He would show this silly woman a fact or two.
+
+"Business is business" he repeated, doggedly. "Either they must take
+the room, and pay the rent in advance, or else they must hustle out this
+very night." He had waited now three days after time for decency's sake,
+and more than that he couldn't and wouldn't do.
+
+Dirk stood looking from one to the other; the red coming and going on
+his swarthy face. Here was responsibility! He had not thought of it
+before. The mother was not there to count out the hoarded rent with
+trembling fingers, and save the wretched home to them for another month.
+She would never be there again. He had nothing with which to pay rent;
+he had nowhere to move. Yet _she_ had called him Mr. Colson, and seemed
+to expect him to act for himself and Mart.
+
+It was she who answered the agent, but she spoke to Dirk.
+
+"Very well; I suppose you are quite as willing to leave here to-night as
+at any time? If I were you, I would leave immediately. Let your sister
+come home with me for the night, and until you have time to make other
+arrangements."
+
+Mr. Roberts had been summoned to a bank meeting, and had sent Ried to
+attend his wife. He came forward now, from the carriage where he had
+stood waiting, and laid a hand on Dirk's arm.
+
+"And you come home with me to-night, Colson," he said in a cordial tone,
+such as he might have used with any young friend; "then we shall have a
+chance to talk things over and make plans."
+
+"That is nice," Mrs. Roberts said, quickly, rejoicing in her heart over
+Ried's promptness to act. "Then you can get away from this wretched
+place at once. Mr. Roberts will see to the removal of your goods,
+whatever you need, and the agent can call on him in the morning. That
+will be the simplest way to settle it all. May she go with me?"
+
+A slight, caressing movement of a gloved hand on the girl's arm
+accompanied this question.
+
+Mart was silent with bewilderment. When had Dirk ever before been asked
+what _she_ might do, or might not do? At first she was half inclined
+to scorn the suggestion. Then, suddenly, it came to her with a sense
+of relief and protection: she was not alone; it was Dirk's business to
+think of and care for her. Would he do it?
+
+As for Dirk, no wonder that his face was deeply flushed. New thoughts
+were struggling in his heart. _He_ was to decide for Mart; he was
+the head of the home now. Mrs. Roberts waited anxiously. She longed
+exceedingly to rouse in the boy, who was already grown to the stature of
+a man, a sense of responsibility.
+
+A moment more, and he had shaken himself free from the spell which
+seemed to bind him.
+
+"We'll do as you say." He spoke with the air of a man who had assumed
+his proper place and taken up his duties. "Mart, you go along with her,
+and I'll see about things to-morrow."
+
+And Mart, for the first time in her life, received and obeyed in silence
+a direction from her brother.
+
+Possibly Mrs. Roberts may have been mistaken, but she thought that much
+had been accomplished that day.
+
+Yet none of them realized whereunto this thing would grow.
+
+Mrs. Roberts, when she ushered Mart that evening into the pink room
+again, and showed her how to manage the hot and cold water, and which
+bell to ring if she needed anything, and in every imaginable way treated
+her as a guest, whom it was pleasant to serve, had really no plans just
+then--no hobby to ride--but simply acted out the dictates of her
+heart. You will remember that her Christian life had been always
+unconventional. The very fact that during her early girlhood she had
+been painfully trammelled by what "they" would say or think, seemed to
+have had its influence over her later experiences. Since she had been
+made free, she would be free, indeed; that is, with the liberty with
+which Christ makes us free. What would please _Him_ she resolved should
+be the one thought to which she would give careful attention. Now, it is
+perhaps worthy of mention, that this closely following disciple did not
+once stop to determine whether it would please Him to give such tender
+care to this stray child of His, or whether she would be considered
+doing not just the thing, in _His_ eyes, if she entertained her in the
+pink room.
+
+About what He could have her do next, she gave much thought. And it was
+not for days, or rather weeks, that she caught the possibility of His
+meaning that the pink room should really be the girl's own.
+
+It was just this way. The weeks went by, and no plan for settling Mart
+comfortably elsewhere met Mrs. Roberts' approval. There was constantly
+some excellent reason why the one mentioned would not do.
+
+Meantime they became, she and Gracie Dennis, more and more deeply
+interested in Mart. In her wardrobe first. "Wherever she lives she
+should have respectable clothing; thus much is easily settled." So the
+matron decreed, and Gracie did not gainsay it. She became absorbed in
+preparing it. Such fascinating work! So many things were needed, and
+her skin was so delicate, and her eyes so blue, and Gracie's choice of
+shades and textures fitted her so precisely. Then, when dressed, simple
+though her toilet was, her remarkable beauty shone out so conspicuously
+as to alarm Mrs. Roberts whenever she thought of her in shop or store.
+
+Several times during the weeks, she visited Sallie Calkins, and looked
+about her with a thoughtful air, and came away feeling that it would
+not do. There was Mark, growing into manhood, a good boy, hard-working,
+respectable, proud of his good, homely sister, and of his reformed
+father. The two rooms were taking on every sort of homely comfort that
+Sallie's skill, helped by Mrs. Roberts' suggestions, could devise. It
+was growing into a model little home in its way, but there was not a
+corner in it where Mart would fit.
+
+Then, as the days passed, a subtle, fascinating change began to come
+over Mart. She slipped quietly into certain household duties. She showed
+marvellous skill with her needle; such skill, indeed, that Gracie Dennis
+said more than once: "I'll tell you, Flossy, what to do with her: put
+her in a good establishment, and let her learn the dressmaking trade.
+She could make her fortune in time." And Mrs. Roberts smiled, and
+assented to the statement, but not to the proposition. There was no
+dressmaking establishment known to her where she was willing to place
+so young and pretty and ignorant a girl. But she was quite willing that
+Mart should learn the looping of dresses, and the fitting of sacks and
+collars and ruffles; and take many a stitch for her, as well as for
+Gracie. She was willing to have her do a dozen little nameless things,
+the ways of doing which she had caught up; until at last the touch of
+her fingers began to be felt about the rooms, and Mrs. Roberts began
+to notice that she should miss Mart when she went away. Still, from the
+first time she said this, the thought came afterward with a smile of
+satisfaction, and it was but a week afterward that she caught herself
+phrasing it, that she should miss her _if_ she went away.
+
+What about Dirk? Young Ried could have told you more of him during these
+days than anybody else. He still stayed at the boarding-house. Mrs.
+Saunders, the mistress of it, was one whom, if you had known her, you
+would feel sure could interest herself heartily in such as he. There
+was a bit of a room next to Ried's. To be sure, it had been used for a
+clothes-press, and it took the busy housekeeper half a day to plan how
+she could get along without it; but she planned, and offered it to Ried
+for his _protégé_.
+
+"Just for the present, you know, until he sees what he can do, poor
+fellow," she said, and Ried accepted the little room joyfully, and
+helped fit it up.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+"WHAT IF I BELONGED?"
+
+
+You think things are taking very rapid strides? Well, don't you know
+that there come periods when they do just that thing, or appear to? Why,
+even the buds on the trees teach us the lesson. How many springtimes
+have you gone to your bed feeling that the season was late, and the
+trees were bare, and the fruits would all be backward, and Nature was
+dawdling along in a very wearisome fashion; and awakened in the morning
+to find that there had in the night been a gentle rain, and a movement
+of mysterious power among the buds and the grasses, and that now, in the
+morning sunshine, the world had burst into bloom? Yet, did you really
+suppose, after all, that the _work_ was done in one night?
+
+There was progress of several sorts in the class at the South End. Even
+a casual observer could have seen a change in the boys that first Sunday
+after they had attended Dirk's mother to the grave. The dignity of
+that hour of sorrow was still upon them. Even the very reckless and
+world-hardened will offer a certain degree of respect to death. On
+ordinary occasions, the boys might have been merry at Dirk's expense,
+for they saw changes in him; but the memory of his mother's coffin kept
+them silent, and let his changed manner have its effect.
+
+That Sunday was full of small events to Dirk; at least they are small
+enough when one puts them on paper, though I admit that they looked
+large to him. Several people interested themselves in his welfare.
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Mrs. Saunders, "I suppose his mother tried to do
+for him. Just as likely as not she had a clean shirt for him of a Sunday
+morning."'
+
+You will perceive that Mrs. Saunders, though all her life a resident
+of a large city, was not very well-acquainted with the abject poor. In
+point of fact, Dirk Colson had had no extra clothing for his mother to
+make clean. But Mrs. Saunders, full of the motherly thought, yet finding
+no trace of a shirt in the bundle of rags that Dirk had brought with
+him, went down one day into the depths of an old trunk, and brought to
+light and mended and washed and ironed a shirt that had long been laid
+aside.
+
+It lay in its purity on a chair at the foot of Dirk's bed on Sabbath
+morning. He lay still and looked at it for a while, then arose and gave
+such careful attention to the soap and water as was new to him, and
+arrayed himself in the clean linen.
+
+His clothes were whole and clean. Mr. Roberts had seen to it that he
+went respectably dressed to his mother's funeral.
+
+A tap at his door a little later, and young Ried appeared, shoe-brush
+and blacking-box in hand.
+
+"Want to borrow?" he said, in the careless tone of one who might have
+supposed that the blacking of his boots was an every-day matter to this
+boy. "I always keep my own; it is cheaper than to depend on the street
+boys."
+
+Dirk said nothing at all, but reached forth his hand, and took the
+offered tools, and the hint which came with them. When he went down
+to breakfast his boots shone, and his fresh paper collar was neatly
+arranged; altogether he was not the boy to whom I first introduced you.
+I am not sure that Policeman Duffer would have recognized him. A
+collar and a necktie make a great difference in some people's personal
+appearance. Dirk wondered a little as to where the box of paper collars
+came from. The necktie he had just found lying in the bottom of the box.
+It was the mate of the one young Ried wore, but that told nothing, for
+both were simple and plain, and could be bought by the dozens in any
+furnishing store.
+
+It is small wonder that the boys in the class looked at him. Nimble Dick
+wore at first a roguish air, but a sudden memory of Dirk's face when he
+turned away from his mother's grave came in time. Open graves are not
+easy things to forget.
+
+Dirk went to the church that day; went with young Ried by invitation,
+and sat in the pew behind Mr. Roberts.
+
+By the way, the seat which he occupied was another of Mr. Roberts'
+peculiarities. Three seats were rented by him in a central part of the
+large church. One of these seats he and his wife regularly occupied. The
+others were almost as regularly occupied by the clerks from the store
+who chose to make that their church home. Six sittings to a pew. When
+a young man chose, Mr. Roberts was ready to enter into a business
+engagement with him, whereby the sitting should be considered his own;
+Mr. Roberts considering it to be no part of any one's concern that the
+sum for which he thus sub-let the sittings was not a tenth of what the
+first rental cost. It was in this way that Mr. Ried owned sittings in
+the pew just back of that occupied by Mr. Roberts; and brought with
+him constantly one and another young man. Today the young man was Dirk
+Colson.
+
+It was all a strange world to him. He had wandered into the gallery
+of the Mission Chapel, and looked down from his perch on the crowd of
+worshippers; but this morning he was in the very centre of things, as if
+he were one of them. Perhaps it is not strange that the startled inquiry
+came to his heart: What if I belonged? Where did he belong now? He
+had lost his place; he must make another. What if it should be in this
+neighborhood, among these surroundings? Such thoughts did not take
+actual shape to him, so that he could have put them into words; they
+merely hovered in his atmosphere. Mrs. Roberts sat so that he could look
+at her, which thing he liked to do. It had long since been settled
+in his mind that he had one friend, and that one was Mrs. Roberts. He
+admired Gracie Dennis, too, with a different sort of admiration from
+that which he gave to the matron. She might be all very well; and she
+was a splendid reader; and he knew that he could imitate her on certain
+sentences, at least. And she had taught him to use the type-writer--an
+accomplishment which he meant to perfect himself in as soon as he had
+a chance. In fact, his ambition reached higher than that: one of these
+days he meant to make one of his own with certain improvements! Who
+shall say that Dirk was not growing?
+
+On this particular day there sat beside Mrs. Roberts a lady,--a
+stranger. He could not see her face, but for some reason, which he did
+not understand, Dirk liked to look at her. She suggested something to
+him that seemed like a familiar dream. He thought much about her, and
+resolved to see if in her face she looked like any one he ever saw. As
+she turned at the close of the service he was looking at her steadily.
+Lo! it was Mart.
+
+Now the possibility had not once suggested itself to his mind. If you
+think this doubtful, you merely show that you know nothing about the
+transforming effect of a becoming dress, no matter how simple it may
+be. Remember, Dirk had never but twice seen his sister in a bonnet.
+The first time it was Sallie's, and though the effect was sufficiently
+startling, yet Sallie's bonnet did not fit her face, as this creation
+of Gracie Dennis' fingers did. The second time the bonnet had been a
+hideous black one, proffered by an old woman who lived in the story
+above them, and whose thoughtfulness Mrs. Roberts would not mar by
+making any mention of the neat one which she had brought in a box that
+day. The black bonnet had been like a mask, hiding Mart's beauty.
+
+The bonnet that she wore now was not of that character. It told a
+wonderful story to Dirk's astonished gaze. Now, indeed, the likeness was
+plain; without doubt, the girl whose face lighted with a curious smile
+at sight of him, bore a striking likeness to the woman who had smiled at
+him whenever she met him!
+
+A curious effect this had on Dirk. There was that in his sister which
+made it possible for her to be something like the woman who had won his
+heart; and that sister was in his care: she had said so; he must work
+for her, and watch over her!
+
+I suppose that Sabbath was really the beginning of the surface changes
+in Mrs. Roberts' class. Not the beginning to the teacher, but to those
+people who only have eyes for strongly marked things.
+
+I know that it was but a few weeks afterward that Mrs. Roberts came home
+with such an unusual light in her eyes, and with her face so full of
+brightness, that her husband said, inquiringly:--
+
+"What is it, Flossy?"
+
+She turned to him, eagerly, ready to laugh.
+
+"It is what you will understand, but a great many people wouldn't. It is
+so nice that you understand things! I feel just like saying, 'Thank the
+Lord.'"
+
+"Do you mean to convey the idea that only a very few favored people feel
+like that? I don't know of a person who has not great occasion. What is
+your special one?"
+
+"Evan, the last boy had his boots blacked, and a fresh paper collar on!"
+
+Mr. Roberts threw back his head and laughed,--a genial, hearty laugh.
+His wife looked on, smiling. There is a great deal of character in a
+laugh, remember; you would have known that this was a sympathetic one.
+
+Mr. Roberts was entirely capable of realizing what this said to his
+wife about the future of her boys. It was becoming certain that their
+self-respect was awakened.
+
+A few days thereafter occurred another of those little things which mark
+some characters.
+
+Dirk, at Mrs. Saunders' breakfast-table on Sabbath morning, heard talk
+that on Monday he recalled. By the way, I should have told you of one
+other way in which the Sabbath became a marked day to him. He slept in
+the little room which opened from Ried's, but his meals were picked up
+at a restaurant, as occasion offered,--a much nicer and surer method of
+living than he had ever known before. Even the commonest restaurant had
+great respectability to him. Yet you will remember that he had by this
+time taken several suppers in Mrs. Roberts' dining-room. He knew that
+there was a difference in things; in fact, his experience now stretched
+over infinite differences; but the first time he sat down to Mrs.
+Saunders' breakfast-table, on a Sabbath morning, he discovered another
+grade: this by no means belonged to the restaurant class? The Sunday
+breakfasts and dinners were some of Mrs. Saunders' quiet ways of helping
+along the work of the Christian world. Many a young man appeared at her
+table as the guest of Ried or of Dr. Everett, or of some other of the
+boarders, who was unaware that he owed the pleasant experience to the
+landlady.
+
+Well, Dirk at the Sabbath-table heard talk of one General Burton, famous
+as a soldier, a scholar, and an orator. General Burton was in the city,
+the guest of a prominent man; he was to speak on the following evening
+in one of the great halls, and much eager talk was had concerning him;
+great desire was expressed to hear him, to get a glimpse of him. Dirk
+listened in silence, but had his own thoughts about what it must be
+to have people talking about one, wanting to get a glimpse of one, and
+next, what it must be to be intimate with such people. Did Mrs. Roberts
+know the great man? he wondered. And then Dirk smiled as he thought how
+queer it was that he should know Mrs. Roberts; that he might, in fact,
+be called intimately acquainted with her!
+
+Remembering this reverie of his, you will better understand how he felt
+on Monday morning, as he made his way in haste down a quiet part of one
+of the up-town streets, intent on an errand that required promptness, to
+hear his name called by Mrs. Roberts.
+
+"Good morning!" she said. "Are you in too great haste to recognize your
+friends? I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. General Burton,
+Mr. Colson. General, this is one of my young men, of whom I told you."
+
+Whereupon the famous general, hero of many battles, held out his honored
+hand, and took Dirk's in a cordial grasp. I don't suppose I could
+explain to you what an effect this action had on a boy like Dirk.
+
+There is this comfort: you may be a student of human nature, and
+therefore may understand it all without explanation.
+
+This is only one of many so-called trifles which occurred during the
+weeks, to make their indelible impress on the characters of the boys.
+
+Of course, the Monday Evenings prospered. Reading-lessons and
+writing-lessons, and, as time passed, lessons of all sorts made good
+progress.
+
+Neatly-blackened boots, carefully-arranged hair, and fresh collars
+became the rule instead of the exception.
+
+Other avenues for improvement opened. It became noised abroad in
+Christian circles that great transformations were being worked among a
+certain set of hard young fellows who had hitherto been best known to
+the police. Mr. Roberts was interviewed by one and another, and one
+outgrowth of the talks was that tickets for a course of expensive and
+valuable and attractive lectures on popular subjects were placed in
+large numbers in Mr. Roberts' hands for him to use at discretion.
+Moreover, seats were rented in the church towards which most of the boys
+gravitated--the one connected with their Mission; seats re-rented after
+Mr. Roberts' plan, so that as often as there appeared a young man who
+cared to have a spot in the church which belonged to him, it could be
+had for a very small sum; in fact, as pews rented in that church, a
+ridiculously small sum.
+
+These are only hints of the channels which time and patience and thought
+opened for these young men, on whom, but a short time before, Satan
+believed himself to have so firm a grip.
+
+One feature of the "Monday Evenings" had, in the course of time, to be
+changed. The young teacher of elocution went home.
+
+"I want to go," she said at last, in answer to her hostess' pleading.
+"I think it quite likely that papa would let me stay and attend school
+here; but I am in haste to get home. You need not look sober, Flossy.
+I have had a happier time than I have ever had in my life before; and I
+have found here a sort of happiness that will last. It almost breaks my
+heart to think of leaving those boys,--especially my dear Dick Bolton;
+but really, I need to go home and undo certain things that I left badly
+done. You don't half know me, Flossy Shipley. When I came here I was a
+regular goose. If you had known what a simpleton I was, and how hateful
+I had been about some things at home, you would never have invited me.
+
+"Among other things that were hateful about me, I was a real horror to
+my mother. I thought I had reason to distrust and dislike her; when
+the truth is that I have cause to go down on my knees and thank her for
+keeping me from some things. I'm in a real hurry to get home, and show
+that young mother of mine what a perfectly angelic daughter I can be."
+
+And Mrs. Roberts smiled and kept her own counsel; and this was all that
+she was supposed to know about her young guest. She never knew the whole
+story about Professor Ellis; though there was a girl, Hester Mason by
+name, in Dr. Everett's Sabbath-school, who could have told her a good
+deal about him, and about Gracie Dennis' helping to break the net that
+Satan had woven for her unwary feet. The fact is, there is a great
+deal concerning all these people--Hester Mason and Dr. Everett and Joy
+Saunders and Joy Saunders' mother--which I should have liked to tell you
+if I could have found room. You may read of them any time, however, if
+you choose, in a book called "An Endless Chain." Of course, the story of
+their lives does not end even _there_, because the chain is, as I said,
+_endless_; but there are many of the links presented to view.
+
+So Grace Dennis went home. And neither then, nor afterward, did Mrs.
+Roberts hear in detail the story of Professor Ellis. What matter? She
+had, however, a short added chapter. It came in a letter from Mrs.
+Marion Dennis not long after Gracie's return. It read thus.--
+
+Oh, Flossy Shipley Roberts! blessed little scheming saint that you are!
+What did you do? How did you do it! Ah! I know more about it than those
+sentences would indicate. The dear Lord did it, working through you,
+His servant. He has called our Gracie to higher ground, filled her heart
+with that which has made insignificant things take their true place, and
+wrong things show for what they are.
+
+You know, of course, that it is all right about Professor Ellis;--or no!
+I fear it is all wrong about him, but right with our Gracie. I hear that
+he has permanently located in your city. Perhaps your Christian charity
+can reach him. He sent Gracie a letter, trying to explain certain
+affairs about that Mason girl, with which I presume you are familiar.
+She showed me the letter and her answer. He will not write her another!
+
+"_I_ don't know any Mason girl," said Mrs. Roberts to her husband, "but
+it doesn't matter. I don't want to know the story if there is nothing to
+be done through it. There are stories enough that one _must_ know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+"IT IS NO MADE-UP AFFAIR"
+
+
+It was Monday evening, and there was company at Mr. Roberts' home;
+not the usual Monday evening gathering, but quite a large party
+of well-dressed men and women, many of them young, yet some were
+middle-aged. The pretty room opposite the conservatory was thrown open,
+and aglow with lights and flowers; and groups were continually passing
+in and out, admiring the paintings and the flowers, and the type-writers
+of different patterns, and the books and magazines, of which there
+were many. But interest was not confined to this room. The parlors were
+thrown open and the music-room beyond; even the cosy little library was
+public property for this one evening. The company was large, and their
+tastes were varied; so no pains had been spared to give them variety.
+
+You are acquainted with quite a number of the guests; yet I am by no
+means sure that you would recognize them all. Even in so short a period
+of time as three years, great changes may be elicited!
+
+For instance, do you know the young man in unnoticeable, and therefore
+appropriate, evening dress, who is doing duty at the piano, watching
+with practiced eye the course of the player, and turning the leaf with
+skilful hand at just the right moment? It is a somewhat embarrassing
+position; but his manner leads you to suppose that he has been
+accustomed to it all his life, and that he reads music well. In the
+latter belief you are correct; but as to being accustomed to it--three
+years ago Nimble Dick could have told you a different story!
+
+You can't believe that it is he? I do not wonder. The change is
+certainly a great one; but he does not feel it. To tell you the truth,
+he almost forgets, when he becomes absorbed in his work, that this sort
+of society was not always open to him. Three years means a long time to
+the young; and Richard Bolton has so long been accustomed to the freedom
+of Mrs. Roberts' parlors, and to the sort of people whom one finds
+there, that none of the refinements of polite life are strange to him;
+and as to turning music, has he not done it for his hostess numberless
+times?
+
+If your eyes are now opened, it is possible that you may be trying to
+spy out other young men. The rooms are full of them, elegantly-dressed,
+fashionable young men; but a few are noticeable by the air which they
+have of being in a sense responsible for the comfort of the others. They
+are on the alert; they are taking care that no young guest shall appear
+for a moment to be forgotten or neglected. They appear to be entirely
+familiar with the house and all its appointments. They can be appealed
+to for a glass of water or an ice, or to know what special scene this
+landscape hanging over the mantel represents, or whose bust this is in
+the niche at the left, or in what portion of the library a certain
+book will be found, or from what part of the foreign world that
+strangely-shaped shell came, and they are all equally at home. In short,
+it is like having a dozen or twenty young hosts to look after your
+comfort and pleasure. In point of fact, there are seventeen of them. The
+original seven has thus increased. Two months ago there were twenty, but
+one has secured an appointment as telegraph operator in a distant city,
+and as Stephen Crowley occupies a similar position in one of the offices
+in this city, some very interesting conversations are held, and many
+important items connected with the "Monday Evenings" and the South End
+School and the "Library Association," etc., are transmitted when the
+lines are not otherwise employed. Young Haskell, too, has gone with one
+of the partners from the store where he was first employed, to set up a
+branch store in a not distant town; and his old Sabbath-school teacher
+has already received letters from him, saying that they have started
+a branch Sunday-school in the south part of the town, and that he has
+picked seven little wretches out of the streets, from eight to twelve
+years of age, and gone to work. "And, dear Mrs. Roberts, I wish you
+would pray for me, that I may be able to bring every one of them to
+Christ."
+
+So the letter ran; and that tells volumes to the initiated about young
+Haskell.
+
+But although the changes among these young men have been great almost
+to bewilderment, only one of the number has been promoted to a dazzling
+height. The others are without exception earning good, honest livings
+for themselves; securing good, substantial educations through the
+evening classes which have grown out of that first effort; bidding fair
+to become leading and honored citizens when they actually take their
+places as men. But Mark Calkins, faithful, plodding, good-hearted,
+patient Mark, has surpassed them all! The truth is "that eye hath not
+seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart," what sort of
+magnificence surrounds him now. He has gone to court. The chief Ruler
+of the realm has sent for Mark to be always in his immediate presence in
+the palace; and with what joy he went I cannot tell you. Nor how often
+they speak of him, and try to let their hearts conceive of the glory
+which surrounds him, and dwell on the day when they will be called, one
+after another, to share the same glory; for this is the ambition of more
+than half of them.
+
+Now, in that sentence is unveiled the most curious part of my curious
+story; and that it is curious, I frankly admit. It is no made-up affair.
+I am not responsible for the strangeness of it. You are to remember
+that "truth is stranger than fiction," and then to understand that I am
+telling you the truth. It is, then, a fact, that these young men have
+each received conditional appointments to serve in the palace, high in
+power and splendor and dignity. The conditions are that they are to be
+willing to be guided in all things by the will of their King, whom they
+each admit to be wise above all wisdom, and to be kind above all
+their conceptions of kindness. It is true that nine of the number
+have accepted their appointments, donned their uniform, assumed their
+positions as He has directed, and are waiting for the summons to appear
+in person at court. It is also true that the others are still in a state
+of indecision; they do not know whether to accept the appointment or
+not. It is true that they feel themselves honored; that they believe
+this to be the only path of honorable and safe promotion. It is true
+that they have full faith in those who will tell with joy, that, having
+enlisted, they find the service even in this ante-room sweet, and the
+rewards great. It is true that they severally visited Mark, just as the
+door was opening to admit him to the palace, and heard him speak of the
+glimpses of its glory, and heard that his last words before he went away
+were, "Oh, mine eyes see the King in his beauty!" and that his voice
+was jubilant as that of a conqueror, and his face radiant as with a
+reflection of unseen glory; and yet they hesitate, and dally with the
+call, and mean, some time, to have such an inheritance deeded to them,
+but not now! Remember, I am not responsible for this. Were I writing
+fiction I should hesitate to set down such idiotic folly, expecting you
+to call it unnatural or absurdly overdrawn; but I do solemnly declare to
+you that this is fact. Account for the folly of their behavior as best
+you can.
+
+Well, Sallie and her father are left behind. But, mind you, they are not
+among the doubtful ones. They both as much expect to serve at court as
+they expect to live through all eternity. But while they wait they are
+busy. They have moved from the alley; the surroundings were not such
+as they liked. Did you notice that bit of a house landing modestly
+back from the road, at the further corner of those ample grounds that
+surround the South End Church? It is the sexton's house, and that
+church, and those Sunday-school rooms, and those grounds, and everything
+pertaining to them, are under his care. The father is the sexton, it
+is true, and attends the furnace and rings the bell; but it is Sallie's
+care that keeps seat and desk and window so beautifully free from dust
+or stain. Oh, they live busy lives, and happy ones. Sallie trusted not
+in vain in her father's promise that night, when he put his weak will
+into the pledge; but you are to understand that it was but a few days
+thereafter when he planted his weak and wavering feet on the Rock of
+Ages. Then did Satan angle for him in vain.
+
+So, on this Monday evening, there were but seventeen at the gathering.
+I hesitate over what to name the gathering. I would call it a party,
+but that in many respects it was so totally different from anything with
+which you are probably acquainted by that name.
+
+The young man who stands by the door of the conservatory, eagerly
+describing to Miss Henderson a rare and curious flower, which has been
+sent to Mrs. Roberts from California, is "black Dirk." Really, I hope
+you are sufficiently astonished; for he looks so utterly unlike the
+scamp who used to be the special torment of the South End Mission that
+I should be disappointed if you were not impressed by it. "Mr. Colson"
+almost everybody calls him now. The name has long since lost its
+strangeness. He is in the employ of the great firm of Bostwick, Smythe,
+Roberts & Co., and although Mr. Roberts has never found it convenient to
+do so before, there were reasons why he thought it would be well to
+have a clerk within call; so Mr. Colson boards with what was the junior
+partner of the firm. He is so no more, by the way, for Mr. Ried has been
+received as a member, and is decidedly a junior partner. Probably Mr.
+Roberts could tell you, if he chose, why one so young, and without
+capital, had been elected to partnership; but, as a rule, he keeps his
+own counsel, only remarking that the young man developed remarkable
+business faculties which were patent to the whole firm. To his wife he
+said:--
+
+"I tell you, Flossy, I believe a consecrated life will be honored by the
+Lord, in whatever channel he gives it talents to develop. 'Whatsoever
+he doth shall prosper.' That young man is going to have a career in
+business. I shouldn't be surprised if the Master meant him to show the
+world how a Christian can use money to his glory."
+
+It is early yet to prophesy what Mr. Colson will do. Doubtless he will
+be a merchant; certainly he will be a Christian; possibly he will be
+an orator, of whom the world will yet hear,--a temperance orator, for
+instance. I know you would like to hear him read a poem. He is not
+confined to Will Carleton's style now, though he still reads with power
+some of those inimitable delineations of life; but Gracie Dennis offers
+no more criticisms when he reads. In fact, I have heard her defer to
+him, when a question arose, as one who had probably studied the passage,
+and caught its best. I am willing to confess that my poor black Dirk was
+a bit of a genius. The thought I desire you to catch is that so many
+of those poor fellows, who of necessity live by their wits in the city
+slums, are diamonds which could be fitted to shine. You take a diamond
+and throw it down in the dirt and filth, and put your foot on it and
+grind it in, and leave it there, sinking and soiling, day after day,
+year after year, and when somebody comes along and picks it out, how
+much will it gleam for him at first? Yet the diamond is there.
+
+"Thou shalt be a royal diadem in the hand of thy God." Mrs. Roberts had
+been at work hunting diamonds for His diadem.
+
+As Mr. Colson stood there chatting freely with Miss Henderson, there was
+nothing about the association that looked incongruous, neither did it
+occur to any. There was not a trace of embarrassment about this boy from
+the slums; he had forgotten the slums, and stood talking with one of the
+aristocrats of the city.
+
+How came she to talk with him, to allow herself to be entertained
+by him? Let me tell you: thereby hangs a tale. Some time before this
+evening--in fact, nearly two years before--Mrs. Roberts had come to a
+puzzle, and stood and looked at it doubtfully. Then she presented it to
+the others:--
+
+"They are growing easy in their manners with me, learning to be
+gentlemanly without embarrassment, and thoughtful over little things
+without being ashamed of it; but I am afraid that with other ladies they
+would be sadly frightened and awkward. When Mrs. Delaney came in this
+evening I could but notice how utterly silent Mr. Colton became; he
+had been talking well before. It seems as though there was a great gulf
+between them and social advancement. How can we bridge it?"
+
+Then young Ried ventured his thought:--"My sister Ester had a class in
+the Center Street Sabbath-school--nice little girls, who wore pretty
+dresses, and had their hair curled, and came from the best families.
+After she was taken sick, she told me one of her regrets was that she
+had not stayed well long enough to try a plan which she had. She meant
+to take a class of rough little boys in the mission-school, and she
+meant to ask the mothers of the little girls to let them come, once a
+month, and play with the little boys from the streets--she to play with
+them, and watch over them every moment; but to try to interest the girls
+in teaching the boys gentleness and good manners. I don't know how it
+would have worked. Ester was never well enough to undertake it; nor
+could she seem to enlist any one else in such service. It has grave
+objections, I suppose; but I have always thought that I should like to
+see something of the kind carefully tried."
+
+Mrs. Roberts, before this little story was half-concluded, had turned
+those eager eyes of hers on the speaker--eyes that always had a peculiar
+light in them whenever her soul took in a new suggestion.
+
+"Thank you," she said. "I see, oh! a great many things. I ought to have
+called in that dear sister Ester to help on this phase of the question
+before. It has always seemed to me as though we were doing her work."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+"THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM"
+
+
+That was the beginning of a new effort. There were certain young ladies
+becoming well-known to Mrs. Roberts, by reason of a similarity of tastes
+which drew them to her.
+
+She sat down one day and wrote out their names with great care on her
+tablets.
+
+Miss Henderson's name headed the list. She was one of the aristocrats. I
+use the word in its highest sense. The accidents of wealth and position
+were hers; at least, that is the way we talk, though I suppose we all
+believe that the Lord is the giver of both, and will require an account
+of the same at our hands.
+
+If this be so, Miss Henderson will be more ready than some with her
+rendering; for she is of royal blood, and guards well the honor of the
+Christian name she bears.
+
+Without hesitation, Miss Henderson headed the list. The others were
+chosen more slowly; ten of them, picked soldiers, to do special duty "in
+His name."
+
+It required much explanation, much care to plan wisely.
+
+But the girls caught at the idea.
+
+In the course of weeks they formed a band, with Miss Henderson for
+president. Ostensibly they were a literary society; really they were
+diamond polishers.
+
+They met one evening by invitation, with Mrs. Roberts, and made the
+acquaintance of the "Monday Club." They sang for them, read for them,
+heard them read; chatted with them on the various topics of the hour,
+the last lecture of the course, which all had attended; a certain book
+carefully read and criticised by Mr. and Mrs. Roberts and Dr. Everett in
+the Monday Club,--not so carefully read by the young ladies; therefore,
+it came to pass that they were somewhat worsted in an argument
+concerning it, which was bad neither for the young ladies nor the Monday
+Club.
+
+Finally, they were taken out to supper by these young men, who had so
+far come under Mrs. Robert's' influence that they were willing to endure
+torture for the sake of pleasing her.
+
+It is a long story. I could write another book about it just as well as
+not.
+
+The main difficulty would be that the critics would pronounce the story
+overdrawn. They always do when one revels in facts. It is only when
+an author keeps within the range of sober fiction that he may feel
+comparatively safe from this charge.
+
+These young ladies represented other parlors and other dining-rooms.
+They arranged for little graceful entertainments, to which the Monday
+Club was invited. Gradually others were invited too--good, solid men,
+and wise-hearted, motherly women. The invitations were select, the
+"polishers" were chosen with care; but it was surprising to these
+workers to find how large the Christian world is, and how many stood
+ready to help if they were shown love.
+
+"It is one of the best suggestions that that dear Ester has given us."
+This Mrs. Roberts said one evening when the Young Ladies' Band and the
+Monday Club combined their forces and gave an entertainment to some of
+the best people on the avenue.
+
+I have given you hints of how they did it. They were every one
+Christians, these young ladies; none others were chosen. They worked
+with a single aim in view--His glory. They took no step that was not
+paved with prayer. Do you need to be told that they succeeded?
+
+This was one of the reasons why Mr. Colson chatted with Miss Henderson
+with perfect freedom, and why his bow was graceful and easy when she
+introduced him to her friend Miss Fanshawe, of Philadelphia. He was
+accustomed to being introduced to her friends.
+
+I'm sure I hope you wish I would tell you somewhat of Mart Colson. If
+you are not deeply interested in her I am disappointed in you. She has
+been such an object of interest to me since that time when I caught a
+glimpse of her once through the cellar-window, with a gleam of sunset
+making her hair into gold.
+
+It is a summer evening of which I tell you, and she is all
+in white--except her eyes; nothing can be bluer than they are
+to-night,--and except the flowers about her. She is always among the
+flowers.
+
+I hesitate, after all, to tell you about Mart. Hers is one of those
+stories hard to tell. Besides, her friend and patron has suffered much
+criticism because of her, and though Mrs. Roberts does not care in the
+least, I find that I am sensitive.
+
+"Has she really kept that Colson girl with her all these years?" Yes,
+she has. I speak it meekly, but she has! "And never had her learn a
+trade, or work in a factory, or learn to support herself in any way?"
+She has never sent her anywhere to learn a trade or to work in a factory
+or to stand behind a counter. It is too true.
+
+No, I was almost sure you did not approve of it. But, for all that, I
+don't mean to argue Mrs. Roberts' cause. "To her own Master she standeth
+or falleth."
+
+Not but what Mrs. Roberts has argued, on occasion,--with Gracie Dennis,
+for instance, who paid her a few weeks' visit, less than three months
+after she first went home.
+
+"Flossy," she would say, "what are you going to do--with the girl? Do
+you really mean to keep her here?"
+
+"She has no mother, my child, nor father; and her brother is not able to
+care for her yet. Where would you have me send her?"
+
+"Why, Flossy, there are places."
+
+"Yes, my dear, I know it, and this is one of them."
+
+"Well, but she ought to be learning things. How is she going to support
+herself?"
+
+"She is studying arithmetic with me, you know, and writing and reading
+with the dining-room girls; and I am teaching her music, and Mr.
+Roberts proposes to have her join the history class as soon as she is
+sufficiently advanced in the more common studies."
+
+"But, Flossy Shipley, that is great nonsense! You know what I mean. You
+cannot turn the world upside down in that fashion, or make an orphan
+asylum of your house or a charity school."
+
+"My dear, do you really think the house is in danger? Does it look like
+an orphan asylum or feel like a charity school?"
+
+Then would Gracie Dennis laugh, but look a trifle vexed, nevertheless,
+and mutter that people couldn't do things that way in this world.
+
+Then would Flossy be ready with her gentle drops of oil to soothe the
+ruffles.
+
+"Gracie, dear, I am not trying to reform the world. There are a great
+many girls left destitute I know, and I will do at wholesale all I
+can for them; but this one is peculiar. You have admitted that it was
+unusual to see such dangerous beauty, and she is unusual in her mental
+development. She could be fierce and wicked; she is ignorant and bitter
+about many things; I am afraid for her. I have not been able to think
+of a place where the Lord Jesus would have me take her. I must see to it
+that _He_ is pleased, you know, at all hazards. If He does not mean us
+to keep her in the shelter of our home for the present, we do not know
+what He means.
+
+"We cannot 'mother' the whole race: He has not even suggested it to our
+hearts. He has simply said, 'Here, take this one; there is room for her;
+keep her until I plainly tell you that her place is elsewhere.' Gracie,
+would you have me tell Him we cannot?"
+
+By this time Gracie would be humble and sweet.
+
+"It is very good of you," she would say, meekly, "and I was not
+thinking of such a thing as finding fault. I was only wondering
+whether--whether--well, you know--whether such a life as she is leading
+in your house would not unfit her for her proper sphere?"
+
+But a sentence like that was always liable to put little Mrs. Roberts
+on all the dignity she possessed. Her husband had ideas on that subject,
+and had imbued her with them. Her voice could even sound almost haughty
+as she said:--
+
+"As to that, Gracie, we must remember that the 'sphere' of an American
+woman is the one that she can fill acceptably in God's sight. He may
+call her to the highest; I don't know. Since she is the daughter of a
+King, there may be no spot on His footstool too high for His intentions
+concerning her."
+
+There was outside criticism, of course. Indeed, Mrs. Roberts was
+sufficiently peculiar in many respects to call for much criticism
+from the world. They talked much about "that girl" she had picked up.
+Gradually they said "that Colson girl"; then one day some daughter
+asked, "Is she really a sister of that handsome Mr. Colson in the
+store?" And by-and-by there were some who spoke of her as "Mattie
+Colson." That was the name which Mrs. Roberts always called her. It
+began gradually to be known also that "Mattie Colson" knew a great deal
+which was worth knowing. Three years of companionship with a lady like
+Mrs. Roberts, and such as she gathers about her, can do much for a girl
+who wishes much done for her.
+
+As to "earning her living," I am not sure but she was learning to do it
+in several ways. Mrs. Roberts struggled against all false ideas of life,
+therefore taught her none.
+
+She was not the cook, but she could, and had on occasion, served up a
+most enjoyable breakfast.
+
+She was not the second-girl, yet her fingers were undeniably skilful in
+the arrangement of rooms and tables. She was not the sewing-girl,
+yet constant were the calls on fingers that had become wise in these
+directions. She was by no means the nurse, yet there was a little
+golden-haired "Flossy" in the sunny room upstairs whose devoted slave
+she was, and whose mother felt that Mattie's loving, watchful care over
+her darling was only second to her own, and was so to be relied upon, by
+day and night, as to repay tenfold whatever she might have done for the
+girl.
+
+In fact, it would perhaps be difficult to define "Mart" Colon's position
+in the house. Yet she was, as I said, becoming known among the young
+ladies outside as "Mattie Colson, that handsome young Colson's sister;
+as pretty as a doll, and a _protégé_ of that lovely Mrs. Roberts, you
+know." As for the Young Ladies' Band,--I do not include them when I talk
+of the girls "outside,"--what they had done for Mattie Colson she could
+not have told you though she tried, her eyes shining with tears.
+
+The days had come wherein the very matrons who had said that it was a
+strange thing for Mrs. Roberts to take a girl from the slums into
+her family--that it was "tempting Providence to attempt such violent
+wrenches"--now said one to another, that "it must be a great relief to
+Mrs. Roberts to have that Mattie Colson always at her elbow to see that
+everything about the home was just as it should be;" and they added,
+with a sigh, that "some people were very fortunate."
+
+Now, dear critic, you stand all ready to say that this is a very nice
+_paper_ story, but that in actual life attempts at doing good do not
+result so smoothly; that to be "natural," Mrs. Roberts ought, at least,
+to have tried in vain to reclaim half of her boys.
+
+It is true, I have said nothing to you about two or three whom she has
+not as yet reached, though she is still trying. My story was not of
+them, but of the twenty whom she _did_ reach. Concerning your verdict,
+there are two things that I want to say: First, go into the work, and
+give the time and patience and faith and prayer that Mrs. Roberts and
+her fellow-workers gave, before you decide that it is vain.
+
+And secondly, will you kindly remember that, whether this be natural or
+not, it is true?
+
+I do not think I have told you the immediate occasion of this particular
+gathering. It was, in fact, a reception given to Mrs. Ried. It is not
+likely that I need tell you at this late day that her name was _Gracie
+Dennis_ Ried. I could have told you much about it, had I been writing a
+story of that sort.
+
+In fact, there is a chance for considerable romancing. There are matters
+of interest that I might tell you, about "Mr. Colson" himself, young as
+he is; and about Mattie, who wears to-night a rose that she did not pick
+from the conservatory; but I don't mean to tell it.
+
+I have just one other bit of history to give you. They stood together
+for a moment--the young bridegroom and the lady with whom he had
+faithfully worked ever since that rainy afternoon in which he had
+confided his gloom to her.
+
+Both were looking at the two young men who stood near the piano, waiting
+to join in the chorus. Both had known these young men as "Nimble Dick"
+and "Black Dirk."
+
+Still another of the original seven stood in the immediate vicinity. The
+glances of the two workers took them all in; then they looked at each
+other, and smiled meaningly.
+
+"I have been thinking of that first Sunday afternoon," said Mrs.
+Roberts. "I asked them to pick up my handkerchief, which had dropped,
+and 'Nimble Dick' said, 'Pick it up yourself, mum! you're as able to as
+we be!' I wonder if they would remember it? What if I should tell them!"
+
+As she spoke the bit of cambric in her hand designedly dropped almost at
+the feet of Dirk Colson. He stooped for it instantly, but "Nimble Dick"
+was too quick for him, and presented it to the owner with a graceful
+bow, and a slightly triumphant smile.
+
+But the chorus was commencing, and the bass and tenor were at once
+absorbed in their work; so Mr. Ried and Mrs. Roberts had the memorial
+laugh all to themselves. None but they understood what the white
+handkerchief said.
+
+Despite the laughter there was a suspicious mist in Mr. Ried's eyes.
+
+"How far is mirth removed from tears?" he asked his hostess. And then:
+"Do you know, when I look at these young men, moving about your rooms at
+their ease, really ornaments to society, and think of the places in the
+world that they will be likely to fill, and think of what they were when
+you first saw them, the overwhelming contrast brings the tears!"
+
+Said Mrs. Roberts:--
+
+"I will tell you something that will do your heart good.
+
+"Did you know that our young lady helpers had reorganized in larger
+force, and with certain fixed lines of work, which they feel certain
+they can do?
+
+"The effort has passed out of the realm of mere experiment.
+
+"They have chosen a name. They are henceforth to be known as THE ESTER
+RIED BAND.
+
+"They came to me for a motto to hang in their rooms, below the name; and
+I gave them this:--
+
+"'And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me. Write. Blessed are the
+dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that
+they may rest from their labors: and their works do follow them.'"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Ester Ried Yet Speaking, by Isabella Alden
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