“Catch her at a theatre—a deacon’s sister, looked up to for a sample, and who run once for Vice-President of the Sewing Society in Silverton! It was too terrible to think of.” But the opera seemed different. Helen went there; it could not be very wrong, particularly as the tickets were so high, and taking out her purse, Aunt Betsy counted its contents carefully, holding the bills thoughtfully for a moment, while she seemed to be balancing between what she knew was safe and what she feared might be wrong, at least in the eyes of Silverton.
“But Silverton will never know it,” the tempter whispered, “and it is worth something to see the girls in full dress.”
This last decided it, and Aunt Betsy generously offered “to pay the fiddler, provided ’Tilda would never let it get to Silverton, that Betsy Barlow was seen inside a play-house!” To Mrs. Tubbs it seemed impossible that Aunt Betsy could be in earnest, but when she found she was, she put no impediments in her way; and so, conspicuous among the crowd of transient visitors who that night entered the Academy of Music was Aunt Betsy Barlow, chaperoned by Miss Mattie Tubbs, and protected by Tom, a shrewd, well-grown youth of seventeen, who passed for some years older, and consequently was a sufficient escort for the ladies under his charge. It was not his first visit there, and he managed to procure a seat which commanded a good view of several private boxes, and among them that of Wilford Cameron. This Mattie pointed out to the excited woman gazing about her in a maze of bewilderment, and half doubting her own identity with the Betsy Barlow who, six weeks before, if charged with such a sin as she was now committing, would have exclaimed, “Is thy servant a dog, to do this thing?” Yet here she was, a deacon’s sister, a candidate for the Vice-Presidency of the Silverton Sewing Society, a woman who, for sixty-three years and a half, had led a blameless life, frowning upon all worldly amusements and setting herself for a burning light to others—here she was in her black dress, her best shawl pinned across her chest, and her bonnet tied in a square bow which reached nearly to her ears. Here she was, in that huge building, where the lights were so blinding, and the crowd so great that she shut her eyes involuntarily, while she tried to realize what she could be doing.
“I’m in for it now, anyhow, and if it is wrong may the good Father forgive me,” she said softly to herself, just as the orchestra struck up, thrilling her with its ravishing strains, and making her forget all else in her rapturous delight.
She was very fond of music, and listened eagerly, beating time with both her feet, and making her bonnet go up and down until the play commenced and she saw stage dress and stage effect for the first time in her life. This part she did not like; “they mumbled their words so nobody could understand more than if they spoke a heathenish tongue,” she thought, and she was beginning to yawn when a nudge from Mattie and a whisper, “There they come,” roused her from her stupor, and looking up she saw both Helen and Katy entering their box, and with them Mark Ray and Wilford Cameron.
Very rapidly Katy’s eyes swept the house, running over the sea of heads below, but failing to see the figure which, half rising from its seat, stood gazing upon her, the tears running like rain over the upturned face, and the lips murmuring, “Darling Katy! blessed child! She’s thinner than when I see her last, but oh! so beautiful and grand! Precious lambkin! It isn’t wicked now for me to be coming here, where I can see her face again.”
It was all in vain that Mattie pulled her dress, bidding her sit down as people were staring at her. Aunt Betsy did not hear, and if she had she would scarcely have cared for those who, following her eyes, saw the beautiful young ladies, behind whom Wilford and Mark were standing, but never dreamed of associating them with the “crazy thing” who sank back at last into her seat, keeping her eyes still upon the box where Helen and Katy sat, their heads uncovered, and their cloaks falling off just enough to show the astonished woman that their necks were uncovered too, while Helen’s arms, raised to adjust her glass, were discovered to be in the same condition.
“Ain’t they splendid in full dress!” Mattie whispered, while Aunt Betsy replied,
“Call that full dress? I’d sooner say it was no dress at all! They’ll catch their death of cold. What would their mother say?”
Then, as the enormity of the act grew upon her, she continued more to herself than to Mattie,