As the congregation assembled Grace yielded herself to the spell of the
organ, whose inspiring strains gave wings to her imagination. Always
impressionable, she felt that she had brought her soul humbled and
chastened into the sanctuary. Here were the evidences of those more
excellent things that had been pointed out to her from her earliest
youth. The service opened spiritedly with the singing of a familiar
hymn which touched chords in her heart that had long been silent. She
joined in the singing and in the responsive reading of a selection of
the Psalms. She had read somewhere that the church, that Christianity
indeed, was losing its hold upon the mind and the conscience of
mankind. But this church was filled; many men and women must still be
finding a tangible help in the precepts and example of Jesus.
Ethel, sitting beside her, certainly found here something that brought
her back Sunday after Sunday, and made her a zealous helper in the
church activities. Bigoted and intolerant, unkind and ungenerous as
Ethel was, there was something in her devotion to the church that
set her a little apart, spoke for something fine in her, that for
the moment caused Grace a twinge of envy. In her early youth she had
“joined” the West End church that her mother attended; but before
she left high school the connection had ceased to interest her. Dr.
Ridgley’s congregation was composed largely of the prosperous and
well-to-do. Did these people about her really order their lives in
keeping with the teachings of Jesus? Was the Christian life a possible
thing? Were these women in their smart raiment really capable of living
in love and charity with their neighbors, eager to help, to serve, to
save? Absorbed in her own thoughts she missed the text; found herself
studying the minister, a young man of quiet manner and pleasing voice.
Then detached sentences arrested her truant thoughts, and soon she was
giving his utterances her complete attention.
... “Leaving God out of the question,” he was saying, “what excuse
have we to offer ourselves if we fail to do what we know to be right?
We must either confess to a weakness in our own fibre, or lay the
burden on some one else. We must be either captain or slave.... We
hear much about the changed spirit of the time. It is said that the
old barricades no longer shield us from evil; that the checks upon
our moral natures are broken down; that many of the old principles of
uprightness and decent living have been superseded by something new,
which makes it possible for us to do very much as we please without
harm to our souls. Let us not be deceived by such reasoning. There’s
altogether too much talk about the changes that are going on. There
are no new temptations; they merely wear a new guise. The soul and
its needs do not change; the God who ever lives and loves does not
change.... There’s a limit upon our capacity for self-deception. We
may think we are free, but at a certain point we find that after all we
are the prisoners of conscience.
“The business of life is a series of transactions between the
individual soul and God. We can change that relationship only by our
own folly. We can deceive ourselves with excuses; but the test of an
excuse is whether it will pass muster with God. God is not mocked; we
can’t ‘just get by’ with God. We may be sure that we are pretty close
to a realization of the Christian life when we feel that we have an
excuse for any sin or failure that we dare breathe into a prayer.
There’s hope for all of us as long as our sins are such that we’re
not ashamed to carry them to God.... Let us live on good terms with
ourselves first of all and with God be the rest. Let us keep in harmony
with that power above us and beyond us which in all ages has made for
righteousness.”...
The minister was uttering clearly and forcibly the thoughts that had
been creeping through her own mind like tired heralds feebly crying
warning to a threatened fortress. Captain or slave, that was the
question. She had told Trenton that she was afraid of the answers to
vexed problems of life and conduct. She saw now the cowardice of this.
Her intelligence she knew to be above the average, and her conscience
had within twenty-four hours proved itself to be uncomfortably
sensitive and vigilant. There might be breaks in the old moral barriers
but if this were really true it would be necessary for her to stumble
over the debris to gain the inviting freedom of the territory beyond.
No; there would be no excuse for her if she failed to fashion something
fine and noble of her life.
In the vestibule Ethel introduced her to the minister, who greeted her
warmly and praised Ethel; she was one of his standbys he said. While he
and Ethel were conferring about some matter connected with the young
people’s society Grace was accosted by a lady whom she identified at
once as her first customer at Shipley’s.
“Do I know you or not?” demanded Miss Reynolds pleasantly. “Hats make
such a difference, but I thought I recognized you. I’ve been away so
many years that I look twice at every one I meet. I was caught in
England by the war and just stayed on. It gives you a queer feeling to
find yourself a stranger in your native town. It was silly of me to
stay away so long. Well, how are things going with you?”
“Just fine,” Grace answered, noting that Miss Reynolds wore one of the
suits she had sold her, and looked very well in it.
The old lady (the phrase was ridiculous in the case of one so alert
and spirited) caught the glance; indeed nothing escaped the bright
eyes behind Beulah Reynolds’ spectacles. She bent toward Grace and
whispered: “This suit’s very satisfactory!” And then: “Well, we’ve
caught each other in a good place. My grandfather was one of the
founders of this church, so I dropped in to have a look. Haven’t seen
more than a dozen people I used to know. There was a good deal of sense
in that sermon; the best I’ve heard in years. They don’t scatter fire
and brimstone the way they used to.”
One would have thought from her manner that she was enormously relieved
to find that fire and brimstone had been abandoned as a stimulus to the
Christian life.
“I’m not a member,” said Grace, “but my sister is. I never heard Dr.
Ridgley before. I liked his sermon; I think I needed it.”
Grace was smiling but something a little wistful in her tone caused
Miss Reynolds to regard her with keen scrutiny.
“Do you know, you’ve come into my mind frequently since our meeting at
the store? I’ve thought of you--uncommercially, I mean, if that’s the
way to put it! I’d like to know you better.”
“Oh, thank you, Miss Reynolds; I’ve thought of you, too, and have hoped
you’d come into Shipley’s again.”
“Oh, clothes don’t interest me a particle; I may not visit Shipley’s
again for years! But that doesn’t mean I shan’t see you. I wonder if
you’d come to my house some evening for dinner--just ourselves. Would
that bore you?”
“It certainly wouldn’t!” Grace responded smilingly.
“The sooner the better then! Tomorrow evening shall we say? Don’t think
of dressing. Come direct from your work. Here’s my address on this
card. I’ll send my motor for you.”
“Please don’t trouble to do that! I can easily come out on the
street-car.”
“Suit yourself. It’s almost like kidnapping and--it just occurs to me
that I don’t really know your name!” Her ignorance of Grace’s name
greatly amused Miss Reynolds. “For all you know this might be a scheme
to snare you to my house and murder you!”
“I’ll cheerfully take the chance!” laughed Grace, and gave her name.
The minister had now finished with Ethel, and Grace introduced her
sister to Miss Reynolds, who did not, however, include Ethel in her
invitation to dinner.
“She charmingly eccentric,” Ethel remarked as Miss Reynolds turned
away. “And awfully rich; one of the richest woman taxpayers in the
state.”
“Yes; I understand she is,” said Grace without enthusiasm. “But we
needn’t hold that against her.” And then, recalling Ethel’s complacent
tone in mentioning any social recognition by her church friends, Grace
remarked carelessly, “She’s invited me to dine with her tomorrow night.
I’m to be the only guest. She seems to have a crush on me!”
At the midday dinner Ethel disclosed Miss Reynolds’ partiality for
Grace with all impressiveness.
“Why, Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Durland, “do you fully _appreciate_ what
that means?”
“It means that a very nice lady has invited me to share her dinner,”
Grace answered.
“I hope you realize,” said Ethel, “what a great compliment that is.
Why, she can do worlds for you!”
“Here’s hoping she keeps a good cook!” Grace retorted, irritated that
they were attributing so much importance to what she preferred to look
upon as no more than an act of spontaneous kindness in a generous
hearted woman.
“Miss Reynolds represents the old conservative element here,” Mrs.
Durland remarked in a tone that implied her deep reverence for that
element of the population--“the people who always stood for the best
things of life. Her father was a colonel in the Civil War. They always
had money. A woman like that can make herself _felt_. Now that she’s
back, I hope she’ll see that she has a work to do. She has no ties and
with her position and wealth she can make herself a power for good in
checking the evil tendencies so apparent in our city.”
“She’s so quaint; so deliciously old-fashioned,” added Ethel, “and you
can see from her clothes that she’s an independent character. I’m
going to ask Dr. Ridgely to invite her to take the chairmanship of our
girl’s club committee.”
“That would be splendid, Ethel,” exclaimed Mrs. Durland, “perhaps _you_
could say a word to her about it, Grace. You know better than Ethel the
dangers and temptations of the girl wage-earner.”
“I don’t know why I should,” Grace replied. “Please don’t talk to me as
though I had a monopoly of all the wickedness in the world.”
“Grace, dear, I didn’t _mean_----”
“All right, mother. But I have my feelings, you know.”
“The old Reynolds house on Meridian Street has been turned into a
garage,” said Ethel; “it’s too bad those old homes had to go. Miss
Reynolds has bought a house not far from where Bob Cummings built.”
Any mention of the Cummingses, no matter how inadvertent, inevitably
precipitated a discussion of that family from some angle. Mrs. Durland
said for the hundredth time that they didn’t deserve their prosperity;
she doubted very much whether they were happy.
“Bob’s the best one of the family,” she continued. “Tom and Merwin
haven’t amounted to anything and they never will. It must have been a
blow to the family when Merwin married a girl who was nobody, or worse.
She worked in some automobile office.”
Ethel challenged the statement that the girl Merwin Cummings married
worked in an automobile office. It was a railroad office, and though
it didn’t matter particularly with which method of transportation the
young woman was identified before her marriage, Mrs. Durland and Ethel
debated the question for several minutes. Mrs. Durland had only heard
somewhere that Mrs. Merwin Cummings had been a stenographer for an
automobile agent while Ethel was positive that a railroad office had
been the scene of the girl’s labors, her authority being another girl
who worked in the same place.
“Jessie didn’t speak any too highly of her,” Ethel added; “not that
there was anything _really_ wrong with the girl. She ran around a good
deal, and usually had two or three men on the string.”
“A good many very nice girls keep two or three men on the string,” said
Grace. “I don’t see that there’s anything so terrible in that.”