“Why, Cloudy! It’s one o’clock! Sunday morning, and here we are having a Sunday-morning party, after all, right at home!” laughed Leslie teasingly.
The stranger stood up with apology.
“Oh, please don’t go for a minute,” said Leslie. “I want you to do one more thing for me. Now, Allison, I can see it in your eyes that you mean to get ahead of me, but I have first chance. He’s my find. Mr. Letchworth, you don’t happen to belong to a Christian Endeavor Society anywhere, do you?”
The startled young man shook his head, a look of being on his guard suddenly coming into his eyes.
“Do I look like it?” he asked half comically, suddenly glancing down at his muddy, greasy garments and old torn sweater.
“Well, then I want you to come to the meeting to-morrow night––no, to-night, at seven o’clock, down at that little brick church on the next street. Everybody had to promise to bring some one who has never come before, and I didn’t have anybody to ask because all the college people I know are off at a house-party; and I ran away from it, and came home; so I couldn’t very well ask them. Will you go?”
The young man looked at the lovely girl with a smile on his lips that might easily have grown into a sneer and a curt refusal; but somehow the clear, true look in her eyes made refusal impossible. Against all his prejudices he hesitated, and then suddenly said:
“Yes, I’ll go if you want me to. I’m not in the habit of going to such places, but––if you want me, I’ll go.”
She put her slim, cool hand into his, and thanked him sweetly; and he went out into the starlight feeling as if a princess had knighted him.