“I!” Darsie’s gasp of amazement sounded throughout the room. “I! Oh, you can’t mean it! What could I do? I can do nothing—I’m only a girl!”
“Only a girl! But, dear child, that’s your finest qualification! You can do more than I can ever accomplish, just because you are a girl, and will be admitted to an intimacy which is impossible for me. Besides, Darsie, you are a particularly pretty and attractive girl into the bargain; you know that, don’t you? You ought to know it, and be very, very thankful for a great weapon given into your hands. If you will join the ranks with me, and act as my curate, you will immensely increase my power for good.”
“But I can’t! I can’t! I’d love to if I could, but you don’t know how impossible it is. I couldn’t preach to save my life.”
“I’m thankful to hear it. I don’t want you to preach. You’d soon lose your influence if you did. It’s a case of being, Darsie, rather than doing; being your truest, sweetest, highest self when you are with these men, so that they may feel your influence through all the fun and banter. Lots of fun, please; you can’t have too much of that; a dull girl is soon left to herself. People in general don’t half realise the influence of just right thinking—the atmosphere which surrounds a person who is mentally fighting for good. The sunbeams fall on the dark earth and soak up the poisoned waters, and so may our thoughts—our prayers,” She was silent for a few moments, her hand resting lightly on Darsie’s knees. “There is a girl in your house—Margaret France—I expect you know her! She has been one of my best helpers these last years. Wherever Margaret is there is fun and laughter; she is just brimful of it, but—can you imagine any one going to Margaret with an unworthy thought, an unworthy cause? I want you to follow in her steps!”
She paused again for a long minute, then said slowly and emphatically—
“Ralph Percival needs help, Darsie! He has not fallen very low as yet, but he is drifting. He is in a bad set, and, like too many of our richer men, he lacks purpose. They come up here because their fathers have been before them, and it is the correct thing to do. There is no real reason why they should work, or take a high place, but there seems to themselves every reason why they should have a good time. Parents sometimes seem to hold more or less the same opinion; at others they seem distressed, but powerless. College authorities are regarded as natural enemies; religious influences for the time beat on closed doors; now, Darsie, here comes the chance for ‘only a girl!’ A man like Ralph Percival, at this stage of his life, will be more influenced by a girl like you than by any power on earth. It’s a law of Nature and of God, and if every girl realised it, it would be a blessed thing for the race. I once heard a preacher say that so long as one dealt with general principles, and talked broadly of the human race, there was very little done. We have to fine it down to my next door neighbour before we really set to work. Fine down what I have said to Ralph Percival, Darsie, and help me with him! He’s drifting. He needs you. Help me to pull him back!”
Darsie nodded dumbly. Mrs Reeves thought the expression on her downcast face touchingly sweet and earnest, but even she missed the clue to the girl’s inmost thought.
Years ago she herself had been drifting, drifting towards death, and Ralph had stepped forward to save her; now, in an allegorical sense, the positions were reversed, and she was summoned to the rescue. There was no refusing a duty so obvious. Heavy and onerous as the responsibility might be, it had been placed in her hands. Darsie braced herself to the burden.