When the Reader advanced to the rostrum and the reading of the day's selections from the Scriptures and from Science and Health began, Anne held her patience by an effort. Before the colossal discovery of Mary Baker Eddy, the old Hebrew Prophets were little children searching in the dark. Again and again, the name of Mary Baker Eddy, uttered in unctuous pride of possession, struck at Anne's resolve to give tolerant attention, until she felt her own lips forming the words in the respectful pause which invariably preceded them. The old woman herself might have been peeping from a door, counting these ordered references, tabbing them against a possible omission. But the trained Reader never forgot, at the appointed places he gave her due, in perfection of delivery that set him aside from others, made him the special messenger of the exaggerated optimism of Mary Baker Eddy. When he had finished he sat down, in quiet withdrawal, and the Boston Lecturer took his place.
With bowed head, the Boston Lecturer stood for a moment, in silence receiving the silent applause, spirit greeting spirit. He was a middle-aged man, his slim alertness padded to suave courtesy by prosperity; not the obtrusive prosperity of Mr. Benjamin Wilson, but an unobtrusive prosperity, like a bank-book bound in morocco to stimulate a book of poems. He made sweeping statements of incredible facts, in a slow careful way that claimed a long process of logical analysis to which they had never been subjected. He spoke fluently, as if he had said the same things many times, but inserted unexpected pauses, direct demands that gave the impression of deep concern for this special audience; a willingness to give them personally of his great abundance.
At the end of twenty minutes, he, too, sat down. A faint motion marked the loosened tension of his hearers. The meeting was thrown open to testimony. Men and women rose to relate, in nauseating detail, illnesses from which they had been cured by Divine Truth. Tumors, cancers and wasting weaknesses had been alleviated, instantly in some cases, by a reading of Science and Health with a Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. The listeners radiated affirmation. If they had ever possessed the power to doubt, it had long ago been buried under the weight of Science and Health with a Key to the Scriptures, by Our Revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy.
At last those eager to testify grew fewer. The Reader looked over the hall to find no one standing. The Boston Lecturer rose again and named the solo to be sung by the woman in white. She came forward in her turn to the edge of green and Anne sat back, disappointed to the point of tears. The woman sang well, but Anne did not hear. After the solo would follow the five minutes of Utter Silence. Anne wished that she could get up and slip away. Why had she come?
And then, so silently, so swiftly that she long afterwards recalled this moment as one in which she must have lost consciousness, Anne felt herself swept out upon a Silence, so deep, so profound that there was no room within it for doubt or antagonistic withholding. Without a break, as if a great curtain had suddenly and noiselessly been rolled back, the whole hall moved into stillness. It was not a thing that descended upon them. It was a state into which they passed. The terrific wave of silence carried Anne with it; caught her on the pinnacle of its huge curve and dropped her gently into a peace so profound and so real that Anne felt it laving the whole surface of her body. Something within slipped beyond the tight hold of her will, escaped from the encasing body in which she had gripped it, claimed its own and fled into Peace.
The rustle of others brought Anne back. She got up and followed Charlotte Welles through the groups smiling and shaking hands and agreeing on the wonders of the Boston Lecturer. She was glad that Mrs. Welles did not stop but went directly out, and hoped Charlotte would not ask her about the meeting. She could not talk of it. And yet these unmagnetic, unvital, bewildered people had within themselves this tremendous power. Close to Charlotte Welles she walked in silence, angry at their possession of it.
Gradually Anne's mood dulled. Exhausted by her own emotion, she felt spiritually weak and drained. In her reaction, she could have dropped to sleep. She stifled a yawn and knew that Charlotte had seen. But it didn't matter. Without mention of the meeting, Anne left Mrs. Welles at the door and went upstairs.
At her step, Hilda looked up from the cake she was slicing and laughed.
"I never did a thing like that before, but do you know, it never entered my head. I took Rogie to the Park and was giving him a ride in the goat carriage when it struck me, all of a sudden, that I'd promised her. It was four then, but I came, right straight back home, although I knew it was too late."
"You might just as well have stayed."