“I shall hope to see you among them some day, when all the clouds have lifted,” he said.
She smiled and replied with simple earnestness:
“A warm welcome will await your coming.”
And Phil resolved to lose no time in testing it.
They turned into 10th Street, and in the middle of the block stood the plain three-story brick structure of Ford’s Theatre, an enormous crowd surging about its five doorways and spreading out on the sidewalk and half across the driveway.
“Is that the theatre?” asked Margaret.
“Yes.”
“Why, it looks like a church without a steeple.”
“Exactly what it really is, Miss Margaret. It was a Baptist church. They turned it into a playhouse, by remodelling its gallery into a dress-circle and balcony and adding another gallery above. My grandmother Stoneman is a devoted Baptist, and was an attendant at this church. My father never goes to church, but he used to go here occasionally to please her. Elsie and I frequently came.”
Phil pushed his way rapidly through the crowd with a peculiar sense of pleasure in making a way for Margaret and in defending her from the jostling throng.