"HERE WAS HIS OPPORTUNITY."
BUT the question which would keep forcing itself an 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 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 parlour 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 parlour, 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
parlour? 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 may be 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's 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's heart. Early in the 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-waggons 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 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 colours 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 schoolroom than
was that long, beautiful parlour. 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 strown over it. Toward
this spot Mrs. Roberts smiled significantly as her eye caught Alfred
Reid'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 for ever.
"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 colours 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 Esther,
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
Esther'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 skilful 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 Reid 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 doorbell sounded through the house.
"What a pity to be interrupted by a caller!" she exclaimed. "This room
is so much nicer than the parlour. 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 has 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's 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 commonplaces 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 thought. His
eyes glowed for a moment, and he said with peculiar emphasis,—
"Reid, 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 Ells 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 work-shop, 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 parlours, 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 the employés, 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.