"I'm going to church to practice my organ lesson. Come go with me, Win."
Winnifred hesitated. "If I had spoken to mamma about it this morning—"
"Well, let's go and ask her now."
"No, she won't be at home. She was going out to Walnut Hills to make several calls."
"Then I don't see what's to keep you from going with me. No one will know whether you are with me or at school."
Winnie knew very well that she had no right to be away without anyone at home knowing where she was, but she hesitated—and was lost. The temptation was too great; and beside, she reasoned, "What difference can it possibly make whether I am at school or at the church? If I had not had good marks I couldn't have gone home, anyway."
So the two girls passed on up the street together. Winnifred soon forgot her scruples, and laughed and chattered away as usual. She had been reading Grimm's story of the boy who could not understand what it was to shiver. She had thought it very amusing, and now she narrated it at length to Gretta as they went along, so that they reached the church before Gretta had stopped laughing at the absurd climax.
They went up the flight of steep stone steps and tried the side door that led to the choir gallery, but it was locked, and Gretta said, "We'll have to go the back way; come on, Win." So they descended the stairs again and went through the narrow side yard at the right of the church.
At the back were two rooms which at this time were occupied by the janitor and his wife. Gretta knocked, and when the door was opened by a smiling woman, walked in with an I-have-a-right-to manner, simply saying, "I've come to practice." Winnifred followed somewhat bashfully, but recovered her sense of being herself when the door of the little living-room closed upon them. The two girls crossed a narrow passage and opened a door leading to a stairway. It was very dark here, but Gretta had traveled up and down these stairs so many times that she went swiftly now, while Winnifred, unaccustomed to them, groped her way along through the darkness very slowly.
When she reached the top Gretta opened another door which led into the church itself, always filled with people when Winnifred had seen it before, but now empty and mysterious, with the light dimmed and deepened and transformed as it made its way through the stained-glass windows. She breathed a little heavily as she glanced up at the pulpit on the left, and almost felt as if she would hear a voice rise from the empty air and chide them for their boldness in entering so sacred a place on workaday business. But Gretta, entirely accustomed to independent errands connected with musical matters, passed on up the narrow side aisle, Winnifred following slowly.