PRAYER-MEETING AND TABLEAUX.
T was Flossy who had triumphed again over self and a strong natural timidity. Her voice trembled but for an instant, then it was literally absorbed in the rich, full tones which Marion allowed to roll out from her throat—richer, fuller, stronger than they would have been had she not again received this sharp rebuke from the timid baby of their party. But that voice of hers! I wish I could describe it to you. It is not often that one hears such a voice. Such an one had never been heard in that room, and the few occupants were surely justified in twisting their heads to see from whence it came.
It was still a new thing to Marion to sing such words as were in that hymn; and in the beauty of them, and the enjoyment of their richness, she lost sight of self and the attention she was attracting, and sang with all her heart. It so happened that every one of the three friends could help her not a little, so our girls had the singing in their own hands for the evening.
When the next hymn was announced, Marion leaned forward, smiling a little, and covered with her firm, strong hand the trembling little gloved hand of Flossy, and herself gave the key-note in clear, strong tones that neither faltered nor trembled.
"You've taken up your little cross bravely," she whispered afterward. "Shown me my duty and shamed me into it; the very lightest end of it shall not rest on you any more."
Notwithstanding the singing, and finding that it could be well done, Dr. Dennis took care to see that there should be much of it, that meeting dragged. The few who were in the habit of saying anything, waited until the very latest moment, as if hopeful that they might find a way of escape altogether, and yet, when once started, talked on as though they had forgotten how to arrange a suitable closing, and must therefore go on. Then the prayers seemed to our new-comers and new-beginners in prayer very strange and unnatural.
"Do you suppose Mr. Helm really feels such a deep interest in everything under the sun?" queried Eurie. "Or did he pray for all the world in detail because that is the proper way to do? Someway, I don't feel as if I could ever learn to pray in that way. I believe I shall have to ask for just what I want and then stop."
"If you succeed in keeping to the latter part of your determination you will do better than the most of them," Marion said. "I can't help thinking that the worst feature of it is the keeping on, long after the person wants to stop. Now, I tell you, girls, that is not the way they prayed at Chautauqua, is it?"
"Well," said Flossy, "it is not the way Dr. Dennis prays, either; but then, he has a theological education; that makes a difference, I suppose."
"No it doesn't, you mouse, make a speck of difference. That old Uncle Billy, as they call him, who sat down by the door in the corner, hasn't a theological education, nor any other sort of education. Did he speak one single sentence according to rule? Yet, didn't you notice his prayer? Different from most of the others. He meant it."
"But you wouldn't say that none of the others meant it?" Ruth said, speaking hesitatingly and questioningly.
"No," Marion answered, slowly. "I suppose not, of course; yet there is something the matter with them. It may be that the ones who make them, may feel them, but they don't succeed in making me feel."
"Well, honestly," said Eurie, "I'm disappointed. I have heard that people who were really Christians liked to go to prayer-meeting better than anywhere else, but I feel awfully wicked about it. But, as true as I live, I have been in places that I thought were ever so much pleasanter than it was there this evening. Now, to tell the plain truth, some of the time I was dreadfully bored. I'm specially disappointed, too, for I had a plan to trying to coax Nellis into going with me, but I really don't know whether I want him to go or not."
But this talk was when they were on their way homeward. Before that, as they went down the steps, Eurie said:
"What plans have you for the evening, girls? Won't you go with me?"
And then she went back to that tormenting Monday, and told of Leonard Brooks' call with his friend Mr. Holden, and of the tableau entertainment to which she was pledged. They had all heard more or less of it, and all in some form or other had received petitions for help, but none of them had come in direct contact with it, save Eurie, and it appeared that the rest of them had given the matter very little attention. Still, they were willing to go with Eurie, and see what was to be seen. At least they walked on in that direction.
Dr. Dennis and his daughter were directly behind them. As they neared a brightly-lighted street corner, he came up to Eurie and Marion, who were walking together, with a pleasant good-evening. Something in Marion's manner of singing the hymn had interested him, and also he was interested in learning, if he could, what motive had brought them to so unusual a place as the prayer-meeting.
"It is a lovely evening for a walk," he said. "But, Miss Wilbur, you don't propose to take it alone, I hope! Isn't your boarding place at some distance?"
She was not going directly home, Marion explained, not caring to admit the loneliness, and also what evidently seemed to Dr. Dennis the impropriety of having to traverse the street alone so often that it had failed to seem a strange thing to her. Eurie volunteered further information:
"We are going up to Annesley's Hall, to make arrangements for the tableau entertainment."
Now, it so happened that Dr. Dennis knew more about the tableau entertainment than Eurie did, and his few minutes of feeling that perhaps he had misjudged those girls, departed at once; so did his genial manner.
"Indeed!" he said, in the coldest tone imaginable, and almost immediately dropped back with his daughter.
There was a gentleman hurrying down the walk, evidently for the purpose of overtaking him. At this moment he pronounced the doctor's name.
"Walk on, Grace, I will join you in a moment," the girls heard Dr. Dennis say, and Grace stepped forward alone.
Marion glanced back. But a few weeks ago it would have been nothing to her that Grace Dennis or anyone else walked alone, so that she had no need for their company. But the law of unselfishness, which is the very essence of a true Christian life, was already beginning to work unconsciously in this girl's heart, and it made her turn now and say to Grace, with winning voice:
"Have you lost your companion? Come and walk with us until you can have him again. Miss Mitchell, Miss Dennis."
It was a fact that, though Eurie was of the same church with Grace Dennis, and though she knew Grace by sight, and bowed to her in the daytime, their familiarity with each other was not so sufficient as to insure a gas-light recognition.
"We know each other," Grace said, brightly, "at least we ought to. We do when we see each other plainly enough. I have been meaning to call with papa, Miss Mitchell, but I haven't been able to, yet; I am only a school girl, you know."
Eurie preferred to ignore the calling question; she had little sympathy with that phase of fashionable life; so she plunged at once into another subject.
"Are you going to the hall to-night, Miss Dennis, to help in getting up the tableau entertainment?"
Something in the quick way in which Grace Dennis said, "Oh, no," made Marion anxious to question further.
"Why not?" she asked. "Miss Mitchell says they want all the ladies of talent; I'm sure you and I ought to be there. I can imagine you in a splendid tableau, Gracie; perhaps you would better go and help. To be sure, I haven't been really invited myself, but I guess I can get in somehow. Won't you go with us now?"
"I can't, Miss Wilbur. I should like to go; I enjoy tableaux ever so much; but papa does not approve of making tableaux of Scripture scenes. You know, ministers have to be in advance on all these subjects."
Grace spoke in an apologetic tone, and with a flushed face, as one who had been obliged into saying a rude thing, and must make it sound as best she could.
"Are they to be Scripture scenes?" Eurie asked; and in the same breath added: "Why does he disapprove?"
"I don't think I could give his reasons. He thinks them irreverent, sometimes, I fancy; but I am not sure. I never heard him say very much on the subject; but I know quite well that he would not like me to go. Don't you know, Miss Mitchell, that clergymen always have to stand aloof from so many things, because they are set up as examples for others to follow?"
"But what is the use of it if others don't follow?" said quick-witted Eurie. "We must look into this question. I have never thought of it. It will have to be put down with that long list of subjects on which I have never had any thoughts; that list swells every day."
At this point Dr. Dennis somewhat decidedly summoned his daughter to his side, and it was after they had turned onto another street that the girls took the prayer-meeting into consideration.
They were still talking of it when they reached the hall. Quite a company were assembled, among them Eurie's brother, who was to meet her there, and Col. Baker, who had come for the purpose of meeting Flossy, much to her discomfiture. Mr. Holden and Leonard Brooks came over to the seat which they had taken, and the former was presented to the rest of the party.
"This is capital!" Nellis Mitchell said. "Holden, I congratulate you. I knew Flossy would help, and possibly Miss Wilbur; but I will confess to not even hoping for you, Miss Erskine."
"If your hopes are necessary to the completion of this scheme, I advise you not to raise them high so far as I am concerned, for they will have a grievous fall. I am the most indifferent of spectators." This from Ruth, in her most formal and haughty tone. Nellis Mitchell was not one of her favorites.
"Oh, you will help us, will you not?" Mr. Holden asked, in a tone so familiar and friendly that Ruth flushed as she answered:
"Thank you, no."
Whereupon Mr. Holden discovered himself to be silenced.
"Never mind," Leonard Brooks said, "we have enough helpers promised to make the thing a grand success. Eurie, let me show you the picture of one which we have planned for you; the scenic effect is really very fine—Oriental, you know; and you will light up splendidly in that picture."
"Thank you," said Eurie, in an absent-minded tone: and she had to be twice recalled from her thoughts before she turned to look at the plate spread before her. On the instant an angry flush arose, spreading itself over her face as she looked. "You do not mean that you are to present this?" she said, at length.
"Why not?" asked Leonard, in astonishment. Mr. Holden hastened to explain:
"It is not often chosen for tableaux, I admit; but on that account is all the more desirable. We want to get away from the ordinary sort. This is magnificent in its working up. I had it in New York last winter, and it was one of the finest presented."
"It will not be presented with my help." Eurie's tone was so cold and haughty that Marion turned toward her in surprise, and for the first time glanced at the plate.
"Why, Miss Mitchell!" Mr. Holden exclaimed, "I am surprised and grieved if I have annoyed you by my selection. I was thinking how well you would light up an Oriental scene. Is it the representation of the Saviour that you dislike? I cannot see why that should be objectionable. It is dealing with him as a mere man, you know. It is simply an Oriental dress of a male figure that we want to represent, and this figure of Christ as he sat at the well is so exceedingly minute and so carefully drawn that it works up finely."
"Christ at the well of Samaria!" read Flossy, now bending over the book, and her eyes and cheeks told the story of her aversion to the idea. "Who would be willing to personate the Saviour?"
Mr. Holden was prompt with his answer:
"I have had not the slightest difficulty in that matter. My friend, Col. Baker here, expressed himself as entirely willing to undertake it. Why, my dear young ladies, you see it is nothing but the masculine form of dress that we want to bring out. There is really nothing more irreverent in it than there is in your looking at this picture here to-night."
"Then we will not look longer at the picture," Eurie said, drawing back suddenly, the color on her face deepening into crimson. "It is useless for you to undertake an argument with me. I will be very plain with you, and inform you that, aside from the irreverent nature of the tableau, I consider myself insulted in being chosen to make a public representation of that character. I am certainly absolved from my promise, Mr. Holden; and I beg you to withdraw my name from your list at once."
Mr. Holden turned the leaf on the offending picture. He was amazed and grieved; he had looked at the picture purely in an artistic light; he supposed all people looked thus at tableau pictures; it was certainly a compliment that he meant to pay, and not the shadow of a discourtesy; but since they looked at it in that singular manner, of course it should be withdrawn from the lists; nothing further should be said about it. Let him show them, just allow him to show them, one plate which was the very finest in scenic effect of anything that he had ever gotten up. The name of it was "The Ancient Feast."
Eurie turned hotly away, but Flossy and Ruth looked. It was a representation of Belshazzar at his impious feast, at the time when he was arrested by the handwriting on the wall. Ruth Erskine curled her handsome lip into something like a sneer.
"Does Col. Baker kindly propose to aid you in representing the hand of God?" she said, in her haughtiest tones. "He is so willing to lend himself to the other piece of sacrilege, that one can hardly expect him to shrink even from this."
Mr. Holden promptly closed his book.
"There is some mistake," he said. "I supposed the ladies and gentlemen gathered here came in for the purpose of helping, not for ridiculing. Of course if we differ so entirely on these topics we can be of very little help to each other."
"So I should judge," Marion said. "And, that being the case, shall we go?"
"What nonsense!" said Leonard Brooks, following after the retreating party, but speaking only in a low tone, and addressing Eurie. "One expects such lofty humbug from Miss Erskine, and even from Miss Wilbur—the tragic is in her line; but I thought you would enter into and enjoy the whole thing. I told Holden that you would be the backbone of the matter."
"Thank you," said Eurie, her voice half choked with indignation and wounded pride. "And I presume you assisted in the selection of the characters that I should personate! As I said, I consider myself insulted. Please allow me to pass."
Much excited, and some of them very much ashamed, they all found themselves on the street again, Nellis Mitchell being the only one of the astonished gentlemen who had bethought himself, or had had sufficient courage to join them.
"Well, what next?" he said.
"Nell," said Eurie, "what do you think of that?"
Nellis shrugged his shoulders.
"It is not according to my way of thinking," he said; "but they told me you had promised, and I thought if you had, with your eyes open, it was none of my business. I congratulate you on being fairly out of it. That Holden is a scamp, I believe."
"And Col. Baker was going to take that character," said Flossy to herself. And Eurie, in her heart, felt grieved and hurt that her friend of long standing, Leonard Brooks, could have said and done just what he had; he could never be to her as though he had not said and done those things. As for Marion, all she said was:
"I begin to have a clearer idea of what Grace Dennis and her father mean."
