But Mrs. Deacon Bannister answered with some severity,
“We don’t believe in shows and plays, you know,” thus giving a double thrust, and showing that the opera had never been quite forgotten. “Here’s a pair of skates, though, and a smellin’ bottle I’d like to have put on for John and Sylvia,” she added, handing her package to Aunt Betsy, who, while seeing the skates and smelling bottle suspended from a bough, was guilty of wondering if “the partaker wasn’t most as bad as the thief.”
This was in the afternoon, and was all forgotten now, when with her Sunday clothes she never would have worn in that jam but for the great occasion, Aunt Betsy elbowed her way up the middle aisle, her face wearing a very important and knowing look, especially when Uncle Ephraim’s tall figure bent for a moment under the hemlock boughs, and then disappeared in the little vestry room where he held a private consultation with the rector. That she knew something her neighbors didn’t was evident, but she kept it to herself, turning her head occasionally to look up at the organ where Katy was presiding. Others too, there were, who turned their heads as the soft music began to fill the church, and the heavy bass rolled up the aisles, making the floor tremble beneath their feet and sending a thrill through every vein. It was a skillful hand which swept the keys that night, for Katy played with her whole soul—not the voluntary there before her in printed form, nor any one thing she had ever heard, but taking parts of many things, and mingling them with strains of her own improvising she filled the house as it had never been filled before, playing a soft, sweet refrain when she thought of Helen, then bursting into louder, fuller tones, when she remembered Bethlehem’s Child and the song the angels sang, and then as she recalled her own sad life since she knelt at the altar a happy bride, the organ notes seemed much like human sobs, now rising to a stormy pitch of passion, wild and uncontrolled, and then dying out as dies the summer wind after a fearful storm. Awed and wonderstruck the organ boy looked at Katy as she played, almost forgetting his part of the performance in his amazement, and saying to himself when she had finished,
“Guy, ain’t she a brick?” and whispering to her, “Didn’t we go that strong?”
The people had wondered where Helen was, as, without the aid of music, Katy led the children in their carols, and this wonder increased when it was whispered round that “Miss Lennox had come, and was standing with a man back by the register.”
After this Aunt Betsy grew very calm, and could enjoy the distributing of the gifts, going up herself two or three times, and wondering why anybody should think of her, a good-for-nothing old woman. The skates and the smelling bottle both went safely to Sylvia and John, while Mrs. Deacon Bannister looked radiant when her name was called and she was made the recipient of a jar of butternut pickles, such as only Aunt Betsy Barlow could make.
“Miss Helen Lennox. A soldier in uniform, from one of her Sunday-school scholars,”
The words rang out loud and clear, as the Rector held up the sugar toy before the amused audience, who turned to look at Helen, blushing so painfully, and trying to hold back the man in a soldier’s dress who went quietly up the aisle, receiving the gift with a bow and smile which turned the heads of half the ladies near him, and then went back to Helen, to whom he whispered something which made her cheeks grow brighter than they were before, while she dropped her eyes modestly.
“Who is he?” a woman asked, touching Aunt Betsy’s shoulder.
“Captain Ray, from New York,” was the answer, as Aunt Betsy gave to her dress a little broader sweep, and smoothed the bow she had tried to tie beneath her chin, just as Mattie Tubbs had tied it on the memorable opera night.