Winifred spent the evening rather ill at ease. Its pleasant habit was broken up. Had she been foolish? Was she not taking an unheard-of stand? Would it have been better to go along and conform her course to the popular conscience instead of her own, perhaps very silly, one? She should be laughed at, and it was miserable to be laughed at or thought eccentric. She tried to play the piano, but imagined strains from the Redemption interrupted her. She went to talk with her mother, but found her seated beside the library table with her embroidery while her father read aloud.
Mrs. Gray managed to utter an aside:
"I had forgotten, child, that you were not going to the rehearsal. How strange it seems!"
Winifred drifted away again, unable to listen to what her father was reading. Hubert was nowhere to be found. She went at last to her own room and did the best thing possible. She poured out her heart before God, telling Him with the simplicity that had characterized her first coming to Him her perplexity and unhappiness.
"I am miserable," she said to Him. "I don't know whether I have done right or not, and I miss the music so much. Please let me know if it is right to give it up? I do wish to worship Thee."
No flood of revelation poured at once upon her, but she took her Bible and read. She had learned no method of study, but read where she chanced to open. The portion did not say anything about choirs or rehearsals, but it led her mind away and soothed her. And its atmosphere was so pure and fragrant that when the debated thing rose again it was instantly judged by contrast. Very different was the spiritual air of her choir experience, as in imagination she stepped back into it; and the fellowship of George Frothingham, Mr. Mercer, and the drink-sodden organist, did not seem like the communion of the saints as she found it in the Acts of the Apostles.
With the vanishing of her doubts as to the wisdom of her course came back the gentle peace that she had known for five blessed days, and its price was above all musical delights.
CHAPTER VII
A NEW SUNDAY
Sunday morning found four people seated in the comfortable pew which the iron merchant was able to pay for. And, by the way, what a comfortable thing is wealth in the various ramifications of life, even to one's church relationships! No fear of the unwelcome bidding, "Sit thou here under my footstool"—in the undesirable front seats where one's neck must be craned backward to admit of seeing the minister; nor of being relegated to the back pews when ears have become a little dull with age. How thankful should one be whose lot in life is thus favorably cast! But we have not admitted to our consciousness a thankfulness that the Epistle of James is not often read; or, if read, too literally dwelt upon. We have found a grateful oil to pour upon any rising waters of ill conscience in reflecting upon the beneficent adjustment of social relationships by a wise Providence and the divine right of money-kings.