OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE.
"WHY are not the Ansted girls included among our workers?"
It was the music-teacher who asked this question, as she waited in
the music-room for recess to close, and her work to begin. Around the
stove gathered the usual group of girls, talking eagerly. An absorbing
topic had been opened before them, one with unending resources. Ruth
Jennings had had unprecedented success, the Saturday before, disposing
of pie-lifters. She was detailing some of her curious experiences. Also
she had received an order for a certain kind of egg-beater, the like
of which had never been seen in South Plains. She had duly reported
the mysteriously-described thing to Miss Benedict, who had at once
recognized it, and sent her order out by the morning mail--not for
one, but two dozen. Why should not other families in South Plains beat
eggs in comfort? It was strange that she had not thought of those nice
little egg-beaters.
This and a dozen other matters of interest were being repeated and
discussed, the lady at the piano being constantly appealed to for
information, or to confirm some surprising statement. During a
momentary lull in the talk, she asked her question.
Ruth Jennings answered:
"Oh, the Ansted girls! Why, Miss Benedict, is it possible that you have
not discovered that they belong to a higher sphere? Dear me! They have
nothing to do with South Plains, except to tolerate it during a few
months of the summer because the old homestead is here, and they can't
very well move it to the city. They live in that lovely place at the
top of Curve Hill. You have been up there, haven't you? It is the only
really lovely spot in South Plains. In summer their grounds are just
elegant!"
Yes, Miss Benedict had been in that direction, and every other. She
rested herself, body and soul, by long, brisk, lonely walks. She had
noticed the place and wondered over it, and had meant to ask its
history. So unlike every other spot in the withered village. Great
broad fields stretching into the distance; handsome iron fence, with
massive gate-posts, guarded by fierce-looking dogs in iron; a trellised
arbor, the outline of a croquet-ground; a hint of wide-spreading,
carefully kept lawns, showing between patches of the snow; a
summerhouse that in the season of vines and blossoms must be lovely;
a circle that suggested an artificial pond, centred with a fountain,
where she could imagine the water playing rainbows with the sunshine in
the long summer days.
And in short, there were all about this place very unmistakable tokens
of the sort of refinement which is only to be secured by a full purse
and an abundance of elegant leisure on the part of some one whose
tastes are cultured to the highest degree. Shrouded in the snows of
midwinter, with a shut-up look about the large, old-fashioned, roomy
house, kept in a state of perfect repair, yet kept carefully for what
it was, a country home, the place was marked and exceptional.
It spoke a language that could be found nowhere else, in the village
or out of it for miles around. Miss Benedict had looked upon it with
loving eyes. It spoke to her of the world from which she had come
away; of the sort of life which had always heretofore been hers. It
did not look elegant to her, except by contrast with the surrounding
shabbiness. She had been used to much greater elegance. It simply said
"home" to her sad heart; and only the Saturday before, she had wondered
whose home it was, and why she never saw people who seemed to match it,
and when it would be opened again for residence, and whether she should
ever get a chance to visit that lovely greenhouse, all aglow even now.
It came to her as a surprise that it really was the home of two of her
pupils.
"Do you mean that the Ansteds _live_ there?" she questioned. "Where is
the family? and why are the girls here?"
"Oh, the family are everywhere. They scatter in the winter like the
birds. Go South, you know, or West, or wherever suits their royal
fancy. They have no home but this, because they can not make up their
minds where to settle down for one, so they board all over the world.
Do business in the city, live in South Plains, and stay in Europe; that
is about their history."
"And the girls remain here while their parents are away?"
"Part of the time, yes'm. Mrs. Ansted was a schoolmate of Mrs. Foster,
I have heard, and respects her very highly, and would prefer having the
girls with her to sending them anywhere else. Mr. Ansted is a merchant
in the city. In the summer he comes out home every night, and some of
them stay in town with him a great deal. It is only ten miles away,
you know. If they did not charge so dreadfully on the new railroad, we
might get a chance to look at its splendors once in a while ourselves;
but the Ansteds don't care for high prices. Mr. Ansted is one of the
directors, and I suppose they ride for nothing, just because they could
afford to pay eighty cents a day as well as not. That seems to be the
way things work."
"But the family attend this church, of course, while they are here. I
should think the girls would be interested to join us."
"Oh, no, ma'am; indeed, they don't. They haven't been inside the church
six times in as many years. They go to town."
"Not to church!"
"Yes'm; they do. Every pleasant day their carriage rolls by our house
about half-past eight, and makes me feel cross and envious all day."
"But do you really mean that they habitually go ten miles to church
each Sabbath, when there is one right at their doors that they might
attend? What denomination are they?"
"The very same as our own," the girl said, laughing over Miss
Benedict's astonished face.
Then the gentle Nettie added her explanation:
"Well, but, girls, you know they don't really go _ten_ miles. There is
an elegant church, Miss Benedict, just about seven, or maybe almost
eight, miles from here. It was built by wealthy people who live out
there in the suburbs, and it is said to be the prettiest church in
town, and the Ansteds go to that."
"But eight miles every Sabbath, and return, must make a busy and
wearying day of the Sabbath, I should think, when there is no occasion.
How came they to fall into the habit of going so far?"
"Why, they did not use to spend their summers here; only a few weeks
during August. They had a house in town, and then Mrs. Ansted was sick,
and the doctors said she could not live in the city, and they had a
little delicate baby, who they said would die unless they kept it in
the country. So, they sold their town house, and came out here to stay
until they decided what to do, and then the railroad was built, and
Mr. Ansted found it easy enough to get back and forth to his business,
and the baby began to grow strong, and they spent a great deal of money
on the place, and grew to liking it, and they just stay on. They keep
rooms in town, and are there a great deal, but they really live in
South Plains."
"And drive to church every Sabbath!"
"Well, every Sabbath when it is pleasant. They are not very regular.
When it is too warm to go, they lounge under the trees, and when it is
too rainy they lounge in their handsome house, I suppose. At any rate,
they don't appear in our church. We don't see much more of them when
they are at home than when they are in Europe, only riding by."
"And do the girls like to be here at school while the family is away?"
"Well, that is a new thing, you see. Mrs. Foster has only been here
since September. Before that, they never looked at our school; but
directly they heard she was coming, the Ansted girls came in, and are
to board here until the family come back from Florida. We never any of
us spoke to Fannie and Ella Ansted in our lives until they appeared
here in October."
Then Mary Burton spoke:
"And we shall not get a chance to speak with their highnesses much
longer. The Ansteds are coming home in two weeks. Lilian, that's the
baby, has had a low fever, and the doctors have decided that she needs
to come home and get braced up, and the house is being aired for their
coming. Ella Ansted told me this morning. She says she and Fannie will
only be here at recitations after next week or week after. She doesn't
know just when the folks will get here, they are going to stop in New
York."
"Girls," said the music-teacher in her most resolute tone, "let us get
the Ansted girls into our circle, and set them at work for the church."
But this met with eager demurs. The Ansteds held themselves aloof from
South Plains. They never made calls among the people, or invited them
to their home, or noticed them in any way. They had nothing to do with
the poor little church; never came to the prayer meetings, nor to the
socials, nor in any way indicated that they belonged to the same flesh
and blood as the worshipers there, and South Plains held its head too
high and thought too much of itself to run after them. The girls were
well enough, Fannie and Ella, and they had been pleasant to them; but
as for stooping to coax them to help, they did not feel that they could
do it, even for Miss Benedict.
"I don't want you to stoop," declared Miss Benedict, "nor to coax. I
want you to give them a good hearty invitation to join us. Poor things!
I am just as sorry for them as I can be! Eight miles away from their
church and all church friends; no prayer meeting to attend, and no
pastor to interest himself in all they do! I have wondered why those
girls seemed so out in the cold. I begin to understand it. You think
you have been cordial; but you have just edged out a little, made a
tiny opening in your circle, and said in effect: 'Oh, you may come in,
if you will crawl in there! We will tolerate you while you are here,
if you won't expect too much, nor ask us to invite you to our special
doings of any sort. You are just outsiders, and we are not going to
stoop to you, and let you be one with us.'"
The girls laughed a little, but Ruth Jennings demurred. Nobody had
wanted them to stay outside; they had chosen to do so. They would not
attend the church, though the trustees had invited Mr. Ansted, and they
never showed in any way an interest in South Plains or its people.
Miss Benedict changed her tactics:
"Girls, wait; let me ask you, are Fannie and Ella Ansted Christians?"
"Not that I ever heard of," Ruth said, and Mary Burton added that she
knew they were not; that one day when they were talking about such
things, Ella asked the strangest questions, almost as though she were a
heathen; and Fannie did not seem to know much better.
"Well, have you made them realize that you young people belong to
Christ, and that it is a pleasant way, and you would like to have them
join it, and work for his cause? Ruth, my dear, do they know that you
desire to have them happy in Christ, and that you pray for this every
day?"
"It isn't likely they do, Miss Benedict, for it isn't true. I never
thought about them twice in my life in that connection, and I know I
never prayed for them."
"And are there any of you who can give a better record than that?"
She looked around upon the silenced group, and waited in vain for an
answer. At last she said, gently:
"Now, girls, there are only two questions more that I want to ask you.
One is: Which is it that stands aloof, and makes no effort to help
others, you or the Ansted girls, if you know Christ and they do not?
And the other is: Will you all agree to invite them to join us, and do
it heartily?"
The pealing bell cut short an answer, if one had been intended. Miss
Benedict was glad. She wanted no answer just then; she had planted her
little seed, and hoped that it would take root and grow.
"She has a way of taking things for granted," said one of the group
which moved out of the music-room, leaving Nettie to take her lesson.
"How does she know that any of us are Christians?"
There was a moment's silence, then Mary Burton asked:
"Do you really suppose there is no difference between us and others?
Can't we be told in any way?"
"I'm sure I don't know how. There hasn't been a communion service since
she came here, and we don't any of us go to prayer meeting. They say
she does. Father said she sat in one corner of that dark old church the
other night; the first woman there, and not many came afterward."
Said Mary Burton:
"I wonder what it means, any way, to come out from among them and be
separate? I came across that verse in my reading the other night, and
I wondered, then, just what it meant. We girls are certainly not any
more 'separate' since we joined the church than we were before, so far
as I know; and yet the verse some way made me think of Miss Benedict;
she seems different from other Christians. I should like to know just
what made the difference?"
"She is 'gooder,'" said Ruth Jennings, laughing a little, "that is
just the whole of it; but I wish she hadn't started out on this idea
about the Ansteds. They won't join us, and I don't want to feel myself
humiliated by asking them."
But Nettie, usually easy to be turned aside, held persistently to the
thought which troubled her.
"I know she is 'gooder,' that is what I say; but ought not we to be the
same? Ought the boys and girls with whom we five spend so much time, to
feel that we just belong to their set, and are in no sense different
from them? We are all the church-members there are among the young
people, you know. When I told Miss Benedict that the other day, she
looked astonished for a minute, and then she said: 'You dear girls,
what a work you have to do!' But I don't feel as though we were doing
it, and I, for one, don't know how; but I wish I did."
There was no answer to that. The little seed was taking root, though
not in the way that the planter had planned.