John was the safest of topics; they had all liked him; and Grace related many stories illustrative of the young man’s determination to refuse no task by which he could earn the dollars he needed to lodge, clothe and feed himself while gaining his education. Now that they had seen him at their own table they could the better enjoy Grace’s enumeration of John’s sturdy qualities.
This was the happiest breakfast the Durlands had known since Grace came home. It was in her heart to do her full share in promoting the cheer of the household. The unfortunate revelation of her duplicity of Friday night would no doubt be forgotten if she behaved herself; and she had no intention of repeating the offense. Nevertheless she was glad that she had asserted herself. It had done no harm to declare her right to independent action and the exercise of her own judgment in the choice of friends; she would have had no peace, she assured herself, if she hadn’t taken a stand against an espionage that would have been intolerable. She persuaded herself that her mother and sister were treating her with much more respect now that she had shown that she couldn’t be frightened or cowed by their criticisms.
Before breakfast was over Ethel asked quite casually whether Grace wouldn’t go to church with her, and Mrs. Durland promptly approved the invitation.
“You can go as well as not, Grace. Ethel has her Sunday school class first, but she can meet you right afterwards. I don’t want you girls bothering with the Sunday dinner.”
Grace didn’t question that this matter had been canvassed privately by Ethel and her mother; very likely it had been Ethel’s suggestion; but she decided instantly that it would be good policy to go. Her church-going had always been desultory and her mother had ceased to insist on it. But the situation called for a concession on her part.
“Why, yes; thank you ever so much, Ethel,” she said. “I haven’t been in ages. I’d meant to do some sewing but that can wait.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Durland, “we all need the help and inspiration of the church. Stephen, wouldn’t you like to go with the girls? I don’t believe you’ve ever heard Dr. Ridgley; he’s very liberal and a stimulating speaker.”
Durland mumbled an incoherent rejection of the idea; then looked up from his reading to explain that he had some things to attend to at the shop. There was nothing surprising in the explanation. He always went to his shop on Sunday mornings. Even in the old days of his identification with Cummings-Durland he had betaken himself every Sunday to the factory to ponder his problems.
II
As the congregation assembled Grace yielded herself to the spell of the organ, whose inspiring strains gave wings to her imagination. Always impressionable, she felt that she had brought her soul humbled and chastened into the sanctuary. Here were the evidences of those more excellent things that had been pointed out to her from her earliest youth. The service opened spiritedly with the singing of a familiar hymn which touched chords in her heart that had long been silent. She joined in the singing and in the responsive reading of a selection of the Psalms. She had read somewhere that the church, that Christianity indeed, was losing its hold upon the mind and the conscience of mankind. But this church was filled; many men and women must still be finding a tangible help in the precepts and example of Jesus.