"I am so glad!" the fleeting cry came from Nellie involuntarily, and when Armstrong covered her flushing face with a soft look of encouragement, she continued sedately:
"I think such things take us too far away from our serious duties in life."
"Nellie is passing through one of those phases peculiar to youth," observed her mother. "Attacks of acute religious fanaticism are a sort of moral measles."
"Madam!" uttered Armstrong in a shocked tone, but meeting that calm glance of the elder woman, secure in the dignity of her deeper life experiences, he softened his tone apologetically:
"I beg you will not construe my criticism of the custom of tournaments into a criticism of yourself. Doubtless there was formerly a greater license in the Church concerning these things. Even dancing picnics were tolerated——"
"Why not?" asked the bold lady. "We must have amusements, we southerners. We are not Puritans."
"Shall the Puritans hold their faith more purely than ourselves? I see no reason why the very enthusiasm and eagerness for amusements natural to southerners should not be turned into the channels of a deeper Christianity."
Quite an argument ensued, in which it was notable that the forces were drawn up three to a side; old Mrs. Powell, Nellie, and Armstrong against Mistress Amanda and her two cousins, city-bred girls, desirous of shining in conversation.
Mistress Amanda carried on the battle with one hand behind her, so to speak. She disdained to put forth her full intellectual strength to rout a stripling. And half her mind was wandering abroad in a flight after her hero, pursuing his angry way homeward. Could her imagination have given her a true picture of Peter's adventures on the road, she might have dropped the feint of interest in the dinner-table topics to enjoy the thrill of real feeling, in a more singular and vigorous turn of events than was promised by the mild social elements gathered at Benvenew.