Among the doctor's first social appearances was tea at the manse, where he met again the beautiful Miss Cameron. She came with her brother Malcolm, who was Gilbert's assistant since he had returned from college. When he was not too busy in the fields, or in dancing attendance on Marjorie Scott, the young man rendered the doctor considerable help.
It was a warm evening, and when tea was finished the company sat out on the veranda. The manse and the church were in full view of the village, half a mile distant, and a fine target for the telescope, as the minister's wife well knew. But here they were screened from observation by the vines.
"You have never heard Miss Cameron sing, have you, Dr. Allen?" asked the minister's wife. "Then there's a treat in store for you. Run in and give us a song, Elsie, dear."
Gilbert murmured something polite. He was quite sure Miss Cameron's singing would be very sweet and pretty, like herself; but he still had tingling recollections of the whip-poor-will song, and his anxiety to hear more Elmbrook talent was only mild.
The girl arose from the steps and returned to the twilight of the parlor. "Give us 'Abide with me,' Elsie," called the minister, leaning back in his worn armchair with a contented sigh.
"That's the one father always asks for," said his wife, with a smile. "He says he'd rather hear your Elsie sing that, Malcolm, than listen to the best minister in Canada preach."
Young Malcolm turned reluctantly. He was seated on the bottom step, engaged in an absorbing conversation with the minister's eldest daughter, and did not like to be interrupted; but he knew better than to neglect Marjorie's mother.
"Yes, Elsie whoops it up not so badly, sometimes," he remarked with brotherly candor not unmixed with pride. "I like to hear her, all right, when she's singing an out-and-out song that's got a head and tail to it. But when she gets on to those hee-ha, hee-ha Italian fireworks things, away up in G, I generally cut for the barn."
"Hush!" said the minister gently. The first notes of the prelude came floating out of the dusk, and then, soft and sweet, and uttered with a perfect enunciation, the words:
"Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens: Lord, with me abide!
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me!"