Mrs. Hilbrough and Phillida Callender sat together that day at Mrs.
Frankland's readings and heard her with very different feelings
discourse of discipleship, culling texts from various parts of the four
gospels to set forth the courage and self-denial requisite and the
consolation and splendid rewards that awaited such as were really
disciples. Now that she had undertaken to look after Phillida in the
interest of Millard, Mrs. Hilbrough trembled at the extreme statements
that Mrs. Frankland allowed herself to make in speaking of self-denial
as the crowning glory of the highest type of discipleship. The speaker
was incapable of making allowance for oriental excess in Bible language;
it suited her position as an advocate to take the hyperbolic words of
Jesus in an occidental literalness. But Mrs. Hilbrough thought her most
dangerous when she came to cite instances of almost inconceivable
self-sacrifice from Christian biography. The story of Francis of Assisi
defending himself against the complaint of his father by disrobing in
the presence of the judge and returning into his father's hands the last
thread of raiment bought with the father's money that he might free
himself from the parental claim, was likely to excite a Platonic
admiration in the minds of Mrs. Van Horne's friends, but such sublime
self-sacrifice is too far removed from prevailing standards to be
dangerous in New York. Mrs. Frankland no more expected her hearers to
emulate St. Francis than she dreamed of refusing anything beautiful
herself. But Mrs. Hilbrough knew Phillida, and, having known the spirit
that was in her father, she was able to measure pretty accurately the
tremendous effect of this mode of speech upon her in her present state
of mind. While the address went on Mrs. Hilbrough planned. She reflected
that Mrs. Frankland's influence could only be counteracted by the orator
herself. Could she not talk confidentially with Mrs. Frankland and make
her see the necessity for moderating Phillida's tendency to extreme
courses of action? But when she tried to fancy Mrs. Frankland counseling
moderation in an address, she saw the impossibility of it. Prudence
makes poor woof for oratory. It would "throw a coldness over the
meeting," as the negroes express it, for her to attempt to moderate the
zeal of her disciples; the more that exhortations to moderation were
what they seemed least to require. Another alternative presented itself.
She would appeal from Mrs. Frankland public to Mrs. Frankland private,
from the orator aflame to the woman cool. If Mrs. Frankland could be
rightly coached and guided, she might by private conversation with
Phillida counteract the evil wrought by her public speech.
Mrs. Hilbrough's state of antagonism continued to the very close of the
address, and then while many were thanking and congratulating the
speaker, and receiving the greetings she gave with ever-fresh
effusiveness, Mrs. Hilbrough came in her turn, and Mrs. Frankland
extended both hands to her, saying, "My dear Mrs. Hilbrough, how are
you?" But Mrs. Hilbrough did not offer her any congratulations. She only
begged Mrs. Frankland to make an appointment that she might consult her
on a matter of importance.
"Certainly, certainly, dear friend," said Mrs. Frankland, beaming;
"_when_ever you wish and _wher_ever you say."
"Perhaps you could drive with me in the Park to-morrow, if the weather
is fine," said Mrs. Hilbrough. "Shall I call for you about half-past
three?"
"With pleasure, Mrs. Hilbrough"; and Mrs. Frankland made an affectionate
farewell nod backward at Mrs. Hilbrough as she stretched out her hand to
one of her hearers who was waiting on the other side for a share of her
sunshine.
Mrs. Hilbrough turned about at this moment to find Phillida, meaning to
take her home in the carriage, but Phillida, engrossed with thoughts and
feelings excited by the address, had slipped away and taken the Madison
Avenue car.
She had counted that this address would give her personal guidance; she
had prayed that it might throw light on her path. Its whole tenor
brought to her conscience the sharpest demand that she should hold to
the rigor of her vocation at every cost. All the way home the text about
leaving "father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my
sake," was ringing in her memory. Even Mrs. Frankland, in the rush of
oratorical extravagance, had not dared to give this its literal sense.
But she had left in it strenuousness enough to make it a powerful
stimulant to Phillida's native impulse toward self-sacrifice.
Once at home, Phillida could not remain there. She felt that a crisis in
her affairs had arrived, and in her present state of religious
exaltation she was equal to the task of giving up her lover if
necessary. But the questions before her were not simple, and before
deciding she thought to go and privately consult Mrs. Frankland, who
lived less than half a mile away in one of those habitable, small
high-stoop houses in East Fifteenth street which one is surprised to
find lingering so far down as this into the epoch of complicated flats
and elevated apartments.
Phillida was begged to come without ceremony up to the front room on the
second floor. Here she found Mrs. Frankland in a wrapper, lying on a
lounge, her face still flushed by the excitement of her speech.
"Dear child, how are you?" said Mrs. Frankland in a tone of
semi-exhaustion, reaching out her hand, without rising. "Sit here by me.
It is a benediction to see you. To you is given the gift of faith. The
gift of healing and such like ministration is not mine. I can not do the
work you do. But if I can comfort and strengthen those chosen ones who
have these gifts, it is enough. I will not complain." Saying this last
plaintively, she pressed Phillida's hand in both of hers.
If her profession of humility was not quite sincere, Mrs. Frankland at
least believed that it was.
"Mrs. Frankland, I am in trouble, in a great deal of trouble," said
Phillida in a voice evidently steadied by effort.
"In trouble? I am _so_ sorry." Saying this she laid her right hand on
Phillida's lap caressingly. "Tell me, beloved, what it is all about?"
Mrs. Frankland was still in a state of stimulation from public speaking,
and her words were pitched in the key of a peroration. At this moment
she would probably have spoken with pathos if she had been merely giving
directions for cooking the dinner spinach.
The barriers of Phillida's natural reserve were melted away by her
friend's effusive sympathy, and the weary heart lightened its burdens,
as many another had done before, by confessing them to the all-motherly
Mrs. Frankland. Phillida told the story of her lover, of his dislike to
the notoriety of her faith-cures. She told of her own struggles and of
the grave questions she might soon have to settle. Should she yield, if
ever so little, to the demands of one who was to be her husband? Or
should she maintain her course as she had begun? And what if it should
ever come to be a question of breaking her engagement? This last was
spoken with faltering, for at the very suggestion Phillida saw the abyss
open before her.
A person of Mrs. Frankland's temperament is rarely a good counselor in
practical affairs, but if she had been entirely at herself she would
perhaps have advised with caution, if not with wisdom, in a matter so
vital and delicate. But the exhilaration of oratorical inebriety still
lingered with her, and she heard Phillida professionally rather than
personally. She was hardly conscious, indeed, of the personality of the
suffering soul before her. What she perceived was that here was a new
and beautiful instance of the victory of faith and a consecrated spirit.
In her present state of mind she listened to Phillida's experience with
much the feeling she would have had if some one had brought her a story
of martyrdom in the days of Nero. St. Francis himself was hardly finer
than this, and the glory of this instance was that it was so modern and
withal so romantic in its elements. She exulted in the struggle, without
realizing, as she might have done in a calmer mood, the vast perspective
of present and future sorrow which it presented to Phillida. The
disclosure of Phillida's position opened up not the modicum of practical
wisdom which she possessed but the floodgates of her eloquence.
"You will stand fast, my dear," she said, rising to a sitting posture
and flushing with fresh interest. "You will be firm. You will not shrink
from your duty."
"But what is my duty?" asked Phillida.
"To give the Lord and his work no second place in your affections. He
has honored your faith and works above those of other people. Therefore
stand unfalteringly faithful, my dear Phillida. It is a hard saying,
that of Christ: 'If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his
own life also, he can not be my disciple.' But you are one of those able
to receive the hard words of Christ."
All this was said as it might have been in an address, with little
realization of its application to the individual case before her. Mrs.
Frankland would have been the last person to advise an extreme course of
action. She admired the extravagance of religious devotion for its
artistic effect when used in oratory. It was the artistic effect she was
dreaming of now. Phillida got little from her but such generalities,
pitched in the key of her recent address; but what she got tended to
push her to yet greater extremes.
In the hour that followed, Phillida's habitually strenuous spirit
resolved and held itself ready for any surrender that might be demanded
of it. Is the mistaken soul that makes sacrifice needlessly through
false perceptions of duty intrinsically less heroic than the wiser
martyr for a worthy cause?