“That’s a great honor, Miss Bessie,” she said. “George is very particular about whom he asks to go through the mine. He thinks it’s the loveliest place on earth.”
Still she hesitated. It was one of the things she had longed yet feared to do. She had sometimes thought it was her duty to go, that she could not hope to wholly understand this people unless she saw them at their daily toil. But the black openings yawning here and there in the mountain-side frightened her; they called into life weird imaginings; it seemed so terrible to walk back into them, away from the air and the sunlight.
“Why,” laughed Lambert, reading her thoughts in her face, “to look at you one would think you could never hope to get out alive! There hasn’t been an accident—a really bad accident—in our mine for over eight years. It’s perfectly safe or I wouldn’t ask you to go. A coal-mine is a mighty interesting thing to see, Miss Bessie.”
There was something so encouraging in his eyes and voice, so reassuring in his confidence, that her fears slipped from her.
“Of course it is interesting,” she said, “and thank you for the invitation, sir. I shall be very glad to go.”
“And how about you, Mr. Bayliss?” asked Lambert.
“Why, yes; I should like to go, too. I’ve been through the mine three or four times, but it has a great fascination for me.”
“That’s good. Suppose we say Saturday morning. Will that suit you, Miss Bessie?”
“It will suit me very well, sir,” answered the girl, a little faintly, remembering that Saturday was only two days away.
“All right; Mr. Bayliss and I will stop for you. And say—there’s one thing; you want to wear the oldest dress you’ve got—a short skirt, you know.”