The book selected was a recent publication by a popular author. It opened well, and in a very few minutes the listless company was giving absorbed attention.
A half-hour passed, and then a dismayed, "Oh! Dear! Who is coming to disturb us!" from Carrie, mingled with the sound of talking in the hall.
A moment more, and the relieved exclamation, "It's only Freem!" greeted a newcomer.
"Freem," or Mr. Freeman Vance, was a gentleman who was much at home with the young people of the house, and, during her visit Elsie had met him several times. He was older than the cousins, having passed beyond the age in which he was spoken of as "one of the boys." Carrie called him a "full-fledged young man," but admitted that he was "nicer" than most of them.
He dropped readily into an easy chair, drawn up near the grate, murmured that this was delightful, and that it was a wretched night outside, then begged that the reading might go on; there was nothing that he enjoyed better than listening to a good reader.
There was a heightened color on Elsie's cheeks, but it was not brought there by the implied compliment. She knew that she was a fairly good reader. To-night, however, she was giving only partial attention to the book. With by far the keener portion of her brain she was carrying on an argument somewhat after this fashion: "I don't know about this book. There are some queer expressions in it; I doubt whether papa would approve. I wonder if that sentence is really intended as a covert sneer at religion? I don't believe I like to hear the Bible quoted in just this manner. Mamma wouldn't call that girl prudish; she would think she showed a proper degree of self-respect."
You are to understand that these mental comments did not all rush forward at one time and demand attention, but presented themselves at intervals during the reading. Yet the doubt in Elsie's mind about the book grew so rapidly that, just as Freeman Vance was announced, she had almost resolved to declare boldly her objections and decline to read. But his coming had made this a doubly difficult thing to do. Poor Elsie felt instinctively that she stood alone; she was breathing an atmosphere so unlike the one in which she had been reared that it would be almost impossible to make her audience understand her scruples. She shrank from trying. "What mattered a few pages of a book?" she told her conscience. She need not admire the book; certainly there was no danger that she should. Once through with this disagreeable evening, and she need never look into it again.
So the reading continued. And the mental arguments continued, also, for to the reader's wide-open eyes the sentiments expressed did not grow less objectionable. It was not that they were pronounced in their form; there was neither downright mockery of things sacred nor downright ridicule of things pure. It was simply like many a book which is being read in parlors; full of delicately-served, sugar-coated poisons. And it was commended, too, in a general way, by some of the very newspapers that might have been expected to stand guard over its intrusion into Christian homes.
It was charmingly written. The pale hero was so fascinating in his manner that, when he languidly quoted a moral lie and gracefully propped it with arguments, you, being eighteen and guileless, could not help admiring him a little.
Yet did Elsie read under protest. "Mamma" appeared before her frequently, with keen eyes and clear brain, and swept away a filmy web which would hide a falsehood from less cultured minds. "Papa's" strong logic came often to mind to overthrow some subtle reasoning. Dr. Falconer's very last sermon loomed up before her once, text and all, to refute utterly a hint which the pale hero put forth.