STERLING SCORES.
At this time Sterling found it necessary to take a trip through the West visiting his branch houses. It was a doleful trip for him. The spell of Dorothy was on him and he had never realized how dependent he was on her being near him. It was with a happy step that he bounded from the train at the end of his trip and hastened home with the thought of seeing her that evening.
Dorothy could hardly have explained it, but things had not seemed just right during Sterling's absence. That she was missing him she had not admitted to herself, but it is a fact that she found herself looking forward to his return with eager pleasure.
Each day Sterling sought an excuse for a few words with her. If he could not make an engagement for a tennis game or an automobile ride in the country he would ask for a drive with her on one of her rounds of visiting among her scholars. In fact, it was one of his greatest treats to go with her on such visits. He was sure that no lovelier sight had ever been presented than that of Dorothy in her happy ministrations to her scholars. She found comfort in confiding to him her plans regarding her class and her church, and in them he was keenly interested. Many of his suggestions were helpful to her.
He told her one day that his convictions as to Bible doctrines were the same as hers, that the investigations through which they had gone had brought him to that point, but that he did not think that was a reason for his abandoning the church in which he had spent all his life—the church in which there had been a long line of his ancestors before him. He said he expected to remain there and work, but that he would feel free to state his convictions whenever he thought it proper, and he would rejoice if the day should ever come when his church would see and abandon its error.
When Sterling found it necessary again to be absent—this time for a week—Dorothy found herself counting the days until his return. The sympathetic interest that he had shown in her new experience had made his company very acceptable. She started a game of tennis with her brother on the third afternoon after Sterling's departure, but she soon grew tired of the game and announced that she must do some visiting, and she immediately set out for the homes of her scholars. Sterling cut short his trip and arrived home on the third day after his departure. As he went speeding up to his office from the depot he espied Dorothy on the street. What a shock she received as she saw him stepping out of the machine to greet her.
"I know what you are up to!" he exclaimed. "You are off on another one of those angel visits to your neglected ones, and you must let me go with you. My machine will enable you to make twice as many of them happy as you could with your walking."
Dorothy yielded to his insistent invitation and she found herself whirled along to the other section of the town; and after the visit Sterling headed the machine for a spin into the country.
Thus the days sped by, but there was never a day on which Sterling was not with Dorothy. Into his ear she told all her experiences and her plans in her new church life.
Sterling was called away one morning by a telegram to Louisville. Dorothy knew nothing about it, and when he did not appear on the tennis grounds that afternoon, and she had not yet heard anything from him, she thought it strange; and when bedtime came and still no news, she was first surprised and then resentful that he should act in such neglectful fashion. When she heard nothing from him on the next day she found herself nervous and uneasy. She could not get her consent to make inquiries about him, and when she retired that night it was with a headache.
She was standing in her front porch next morning when his automobile dashed up to his gate and Sterling stepped out. He saw her and hurried over and gave her an almost hilarious greeting. He noticed an apparent reserve in her manner, and yet the thought passed from his mind.
"It seems like a small century since I saw you, Dorothy. A telegram pulled me off for Louisville early Tuesday morning, and from that moment until I boarded the train I have been in a mad dash to finish my work and get back, and I tell you I am prodigiously happy to be here."
If Dorothy had studied his eyes during the last remark she might easily have read the reason for his desire to return.
"And now I must make up for lost time. I have had no pleasure ride since I left and I must have one this afternoon. Don't deny a dilapidated traveler the pleasure, but be ready at two-thirty for a ride, and after that for a tennis game." Before she could give her answer he decided it for her and told her that he would be on hand at the time mentioned.
For two hours that afternoon they sped along the country road in happy converse. In fact, their ride was lengthened into nearly three hours. That evening found him again at her side. The clock struck eleven. He had started to leave a half hour before the time, and still he lingered. Suddenly he turned his eyes upon her and said:
"Dorothy, do you know why I dashed through my Louisville trip at such break-neck speed this week?"
"Why, you had to get back to your business, did you not?"
"Dorothy, it was you that pulled me back, and I tell you there can be no real life for me without you, and I must have you mine forever. From the first moment of our meeting I have been yours. God intended us for each other."
"You speak very confidently," she said with a smile, but with her heart filled with a strange new happiness.
"Speak, Dorothy, do we not belong to each other?"
"I do not deny it."
Never had the town witnessed a more beautiful marriage than that of Dorothy Page and Gilbert Sterling. That was the verdict of the people when the blissful pair smiled their adieus at the depot and moved off on their wedding tour.
It amounted to a sensation when the rich Presbyterian elder severed his connection with his great church and joined the Baptists. It meant a bright era for the Baptist church. Before a year rolled around a handsome new building had been erected on a commanding lot in the center of the town. Without offering any opposition to his old Presbyterian church, Sterling plunged into the work of his new charge with whole-hearted devotion. He made a study of the Baptist denomination in the state of Kentucky and in the South and North. One of his first acts was to subscribe for several Baptist papers, and it was interesting to Dorothy to note with what eagerness he read everything in the papers, and each time his reading was punctuated with exclamations of surprise at the world-wide activities of the Baptists as he saw them recorded in the columns of the papers. He found himself enthusiastic about their history and their present enterprises The efforts of the State Mission Board greatly interested him, and he determined to get into close touch with it. He told his wife that he intended to identify himself with all these denominational movements and share their burdens.
The Baptists of Kentucky and of the whole country have reason to be grateful for the day when Gilbert Sterling enlisted in their ranks. He is as yet on the threshold of his usefulness. He is studying the needs and tasks of his denomination, seeking to know how he can devote his strength and his possessions most effectively to its upbuilding. There is no happier Baptist family in Kentucky and none destined to a wider usefulness than that of the Sterlings.
(THE END.)