“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.