“To pray for rain,” said Vashti. “If we do not have rain, the poor people will be ruined and all of us will suffer. Already the hay is lost; we should have had the meeting earlier.”
“Then you think—you believe—you believe the meeting will do good?”
“I believe in the answer to prayer,” she said a little coldly; “my father is senior deacon in the church.”
This seemed hardly a reason for her personal beliefs, but Sidney did not say so.
He began to see her in a new light—a noble daughter of a tottering faith. And as one admires the devotion of a daughter to an unworthy parent, so he admired Vashti in this guise also. The loyalty which made her blind to the faults of a creed was perhaps more admirable than a clearer vision which would have made her a renegade to the faith of her fathers. So Sidney Martin thought as they sat out on the front porch, watching the fireflies flitting in the darkness, living sparks of light, and listening to the cadence of Lanty’s violin as he played snatches of old love songs, putting his heart into them—for a little time before he had heard a window softly raised, and he knew that Mabella, too timorous to meet him face to face yet, was listening to and drinking in the message of his music.
CHAPTER III.
“You never can wash your hands clean in dirty water,” said Temperance to Nathan, “no more’n you can wash a floor with a dirty mop. Throw dirt and the wind’ll carry it back in your own eyes. You can’t splash mud without gettin’ spattered yourself.” Thereupon Temperance rattled her dishes violently with an energy almost offensive. Her remarks were in the nature of a parable intended to impress upon her admirer her superiority to, and contempt for, ill-natured gossip.
Nathan bowed his head to the blast, waited till the noisy agitation in the dishpan had subsided a little, and then continued to disburden himself of the news he had gathered during the two days which had elapsed since he had seen Temperance.