The winter of 1892-93 Mary spent at home with us. Her first expressed wish, when the family returned from Interlaken, was to be confirmed, and the Rev. Mr. Armstrong of the church we do not attend was duly notified.
"He says I must be christened first," said Mary. "Would you mind if he called me 'Mary Gemmell'? There aint any name that I've a right to, and I don't want to be called 'Mason,' because that's the name of the woman that abused me when I was little. I'd rather have yours."
She was such a pathetic-looking young person, standing there before Belle in her fresh and innocent loveliness, that my wife had not the heart to refuse her anything.
When I came home that same evening there was a tableau vivant in front of the parlor fire. Dressed in white, Mary sat on a low stool at the feet of the Rev. Walter Armstrong, her hands clasped in her lap, gazing up into the clean-shaven clerical face, with that which passed for her soul in her eyes. In spite of his stiff round collar and long black coat the rector is a young man, and I saw that he was impressed.
"You understand, do you, Mary," he said tenderly, "that when you are received into the Church you have God for your Father and Christ for your Elder Brother?"
"Yes, I understand, Mr. Armstrong," replied the girl earnestly. "And that's just what I always wanted—was to have 'folks.'"
I retired in haste to the dining room, where Isabel was brimming over with a new scheme.
"I've always found the housekeeping a drag, and it becomes more so every year as my outlook broadens. I want to keep up to the times, but I never have any leisure for reading, and our four eldest being boys, there seemed to be no hope for years of having any one to relieve me."
"Mary's a godsend," said I.