The First Soprano Part 12

"Oh, no!" said Winifred. "But I think I can excuse myself to Mrs.

b.u.t.terworth so that she will not be offended. My chief regret will be if it disappoints you, mother."

"But what can be your reasons?" said Mrs. Gray. "They must be very good if you would decline the invitation at this late day. It will be very rude unless you are positively hindered."

"I know it," said Winifred humbly. "But the reasons seem very strong to me."

She was of a sympathetic nature, and it was easy to look at things through another's eyes. She saw the case clearly from her mother's standpoint, and it was difficult to muster her own defense. But she prayed inwardly that the One she sought to please would come to her aid, and He did. It was no small help, also, that Hubert, strong-minded and firm as a rock, was on her side. She went on bravely, but in a low voice and with downcast eyes:

"You know I have begun to try to worship G.o.d, mother; and to know Him just a little is the sweetest thing I ever knew. Hubert and I were reading the Bible together Sunday"--she glanced across at him appealingly, and his face encouraged her--"and we read some of the words of Jesus to His Father. He said that we--that is, those who were given to Him--were 'not of the world,' just as He is not. It impressed me very much. I could not help seeing Mrs. b.u.t.terworth's party, and it seemed to me like 'the world,' and that perhaps I did not belong there.

It seemed so very, very different from what we were reading, that I thought I never could go again to such a place. I shall be very glad, if you don't mind it too much, mother, if I may stay at home?"

She stopped and waited for her answer. There was silence for a moment, and then Mrs. Gray, who had pa.s.sed through various stages of apprehension and distress as her daughter spoke, replied as calmly as possible:

"I am sure I ought to be very glad, Winifred, to have you religiously inclined. But I should be extremely sorry to have you get any fanatical ideas. I never thought you were given to eccentric things, and I hope you will not become so. It seems to me that you and Hubert"--she hesitated to include her son in the remark, but ventured it--"are rather young Christians to decide such things for yourselves in such an extraordinary way. You should look at older persons. I suppose I am not an example"--and her tone was just a trifle icy for such a gentle lady--"but Mrs. Schoolman will be there with her daughters, and so will many of the most prominent members of our church. I really cannot approve of such an extraordinary idea!--extraordinary!" and she repeated the word which usually indicated the high water mark of her well-bred disapproval.

Winifred looked silently at her plate, and Mrs. Gray spoke again, looking at her husband.

"I wish, father," she said, "that you would try and set Winifred right on this matter. We cannot let her go on in such a mistake. Where will it lead to?" and with real distress she considered the calamity of her beautiful daughter's withdrawal from society, and the dashing her own fond pride to the ground.

Mr. Gray had been listening thoughtfully. Now, being appealed to, he spoke.

"To tell the truth, mother," he said, "I do not think the idea quite so extraordinary as you do. When I was a boy, where I lived, if young people were converted it made all sorts of difference as to the things they did and the places they went to. We didn't expect to see them at dances, or at the theater, or any such places. If we did, everybody reckoned that they had backslidden. Those things were called 'worldly.' We have almost lost the word now, but it must be descriptive of something, I should say. If Winifred instinctively takes a stand against such things, without being talked to about it, I shall think it is the old sort of religion that she has somehow discovered, and shall not be sorry. I would really prefer it to be a kind that can be distinguished without reference to the church records.

That variety is scarce enough, in all conscience!"

Winifred was surprised at her father's defense, and it unnerved her.

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she nearly choked over the coffee with which she sought to hide her quivering lips. Hubert looked gratefully at his father. Mrs. Gray looked much depressed. She expected wise words of reproach that would settle the matter with Winifred and perhaps save much trouble in the future. And now he really inclined to her view of the case! It was disappointing. But men, after all, did not always see social matters as women did. She was not accustomed to arguing with her husband, but this case required more resistance than usual.

"I am surprised, father," she said sorrowfully, "to hear you put it that way. I do not think you can realize what it means for a young woman to drop out of society. And I do not see how you can compare those times you speak of with the present. I am sure Doctor Schoolman frequently tells us what remarkable advance we have made over those times in every way. I hope you do not wish to go backward!" and Mrs.

Gray felt a little flutter of triumph at her own unusual skill in argument. n.o.body responded at once and she gathered courage to go on.

"I quite agree with that young man who spoke at our church in behalf of the Y.M.C.A. Gymnasium. You remember he said that the days had quite gone by for a 'long-faced Christianity.' I thought it a very sensible remark."

"Winifred has not troubled us with a very long face lately," remarked her father, glancing at her. "It has lengthened somewhat since we began our discussion, but I think it has been unusually cheerful for a week or so."

Winifred colored under these personal observations.

"I do not know what it will become," said her mother, "if she denies herself all gayety like those young persons you tell about."

"My memory of those young persons," said Mr. Gray, smiling, "is not a very melancholy one. Some of them were pretty severe upon themselves and other people too, I will admit. But the most of them seemed to have found something so very satisfactory that these diversions were not required. I think Winifred is like the latter sort. I hope so.

But, Hubert," turning to his son, "you look very much interested in this matter, but have said nothing. I suppose you agree with Winifred?"

"I do, sir," said Hubert readily.

"I thought so--I thought so," said his father, far from displeased with the reply. He did not explain to the little company that he, himself, had been one of the "young persons" referred to, and that great had been his comfort in the early days of the new life; but that a series of decoys had gradually led him back to the world's excitements and ambitions, until his professed Christianity had crystallized into the formal, eminently respectable, but powerless mold of conventional religion. His memory of early, ardent days was stirred, and he gladly warmed himself by its fires.

"But, Hubert," he went on, "you are a thoughtful young man--how do you account for the fact that Christ, Himself, attended social functions?

He was not a recluse. He was at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, at a dinner in the house of Simon the Pharisee, at a feast in Bethany, and I do not know at how many other social gatherings. Indeed it was charged against Him that He received sinners and ate with them. What do you make of it?"

"It is a difficult question, father," said Hubert. "But I should think if we consider in what capacity He went to those places, and what He did when He got there, it might give us light."

"That is so," said Mr. Gray. "In what capacity do you think He went?"

"He had come to give life to men," said Hubert with kindling eyes. "He must go wherever He might find them--wherever occasion presented itself. I do not think He sought His own gratification."

"Nor do I," said Mr. Gray. "What about 'what He did when He got there'?"

"He performed a miracle, for one thing, at Cana," replied Hubert, whose diligent study of the Gospel of John now served him well.

"So He did," a.s.sented Mr. Gray. "If our little girl could do that, now, it might do to let her go," and he glanced at her fondly.

"Yes," said Hubert, "and He evidently became the central figure there, manifesting His glory. If one of His followers could capture Mrs.

b.u.t.terworth's ball for Him it would surely pay to go. If I thought Winnie were to do that I would certainly put on a dress suit and go myself."

Hubert could not resist a teasing glance at his mother. That lady was plainly horrified. The thought of Winifred's "preaching," as she mentally called it, to anyone at the party, or doing any other eccentric thing, was far more shocking than her staying away.

Mr. Gray secretly enjoyed the look upon his wife's face.

"And the other places?" he went on.

"I am not familiar with the incident in the house of Simon the Pharisee," said Hubert.

"It is very striking and beautiful," said Mr. Gray. "Christ forgave a sinner--a woman of the city--and He had somewhat to say to His host, the Pharisee, about it. He spoke a very telling parable at that dinner."

Mrs. Gray again looked uneasy. She hoped Winifred would not feel it her duty, finally, to go, if it involved a religious errand.

"And at Bethany?" Mr. Gray continued.

"He was anointed for His burial," said Hubert, gravely.

"Ah, yes!" said his father in a subdued voice.

Both men thought reverently of the scene when one who had been raised from the dead sat at meat with Him who, for his sake and for all others, was Himself to die; and where one of the company poured upon His blessed feet love's grateful, costly sacrifice. To such a feast the true worshiper might indeed gladly go.

It was tacitly agreed that Winifred was to follow her own inclination with regard to the party. Mrs. Gray was far too loyal and amiable a wife to seriously oppose her husband's wish, and the sudden fear that Winifred, if she went to the party, might feel called upon to bear some sort of unusual testimony to her Lord affected the case strongly. But she grieved much over her daughter's prospective withdrawal from the a.s.semblies of the "best people."

Winifred wrote a simple, truthful note to Mrs. b.u.t.terworth, and was relieved when it was dispatched. A sensitive dread of criticism and of doing an unusual thing was offset by the sweet consciousness of a happy fellowship conserved. No rude breath from the gay a.s.sembly's sensuous delights was to blow upon this flower of communion, so pure, so fragrant. So Winifred rejoiced, only an occasional shadow falling athwart her peace when she thought of one whose increasingly intimate fellowship threatened the life of the fair flower as surely as could Mrs. b.u.t.terworth's party. It was an uneasy suggestion, not a recognized fact, and she put it hastily from her when it arose.

The evening of the party came and Mrs. Gray prepared herself and went, not too early and not too foolishly late. She had a faculty of striking the happy mean in life's proprieties. Winifred looked at her admiringly, with the candid conviction that no better dressed nor finer looking woman of her years would be there. She felt a pang of sorrow, too, in her mother's disappointment at leaving her behind, as she kissed her good-night. The carriage rolled away and presently bore its fair pa.s.senger to the door of her friend's brilliantly lighted house, where we will leave her.

CHAPTER X

THE CHURCH SOCIAL

Another social event followed hard on the heels of Mrs. b.u.t.terworth's party, and this Mrs. Gray succeeded in inducing both her son and daughter to attend, it being no less sacred a function than the quarterly Church Social. Hubert was not familiar with the inst.i.tution, but so ardently burned his love for the Lord Jesus Christ that he now sought rather than avoided the company of those who knew Him, if so be some word of Him might be spoken. He longed for the fellowship of joy with those who, like himself, had been called out of darkness into "His marvelous light." This was denied in the formal services of the church, but surely the pent up devotion of the worshipers would find some avenue of expression when they met together socially without those restraints. Hubert was disposed to discount his own former estimate of church-members' sincerity, and did not doubt that many had found an experience as genuine as his own of the grace of G.o.d.

Mr. Gray did not care to go, preferring the library and the new number with its fascinating leaves uncut of a magazine, religio-worldly, that had solved for last days the problem beyond the Saviour's ken of how to serve G.o.d and mammon. Three went, however, in the comfortable carriage, to Mrs. Gray's great satisfaction, and drew up before the side entrance to the handsome church.