"But somebody must go, Jim; we can't leave her there."
"Well, now I think of it," said Jim, "there is a Methodist minister who has undertaken to set up a mission in just that part of the city. They bought a place that used to be kept for a rat-pit, and had it cleaned up, and they have opened a mission house, and have prayer-meetings and such things there. I'll look that thing up; perhaps he can find Maggie for you. Though I must say you are taking a great deal of trouble about this girl."
"Well, Jim, she has a mother, and her mother loves her as yours does you."
"By George, now, that's enough," said Jim. "You don't need to say another word. I'll go right about it, this very day, and hunt up this Mr. What's-his-name, and find all about this mission. I've been meaning to write that thing up this month or so."
[CHAPTER XXXVI.]
LOVE IN CHRISTMAS GREENS.
The little chapel in one of the out-of-the-way streets of New York presented a scene of Christmas activity and cheerfulness approaching to gaiety. The whole place was fragrant with the spicy smell of spruce and hemlock. Baskets of green ruffles of ground-pine were foaming over their sides with abundant contributions from the forest; and bright bunches of vermilion bitter-sweet, and the crimson-studded branches of the black alder, added color to the picture. Of real traditional holly, which in America is a rarity, there was a scant supply, reserved for more honorable decorations.
Mr. St. John had been busy in his vestry with paper, colors, and gilding, illuminating some cards with Scriptural mottoes. He had just brought forth his last effort and placed it in a favorable light for inspection. It is the ill-fortune of every successful young clergyman to stir the sympathies and enkindle the venerative faculties of certain excitable women, old and young, who follow his footsteps and regard his works and ways with a sort of adoring rapture that sometimes exposes him to ridicule if he accepts it, and which yet it seems churlish to decline. It is not generally his fault, nor exactly the fault of the women, often amiably sincere and unconscious; but it is a fact that this kind of besetment is more or less the lot of every clergyman, and he cannot help it. It is to be accepted as we accept any of the shadows which are necessary in the picture of life, and got along with by the kind of common sense with which we dispose of any of its infelicities.