"Blanche, did Mr. Easton go?"
"Mr. Easton! What an idea! Of course not! Public opinion doesn't exactly approve of ministers going to such places, though I am sure I don't see why; and I think it is mean, too. If I were a minister, I would not stand it. I think he has as good a right to go as anybody else."
"So do I," declared Daisy significantly.
But Blanche made haste with her arguments:
"But I don't care, Daisy, whether you ever go to a theatre again in your life—you needn't if you don't want to—if you will only go to-night. Think how much is at stake.
"We have been coaxing Phil for so long, and mother is almost discouraged. You said yourself last Sunday that you had given up all hope of his going to Sabbath-school; and here the matter is in your own hands. You can't think how delighted mamma is! She says she knows Mr. Easton will fascinate him right away."
"How came Phil to make such a condition as that? He has asked me before to go to a theatre, and he knew just what I thought."
"Oh, well; but you see, he feels like everybody else, that such a theatre as this is an exception. He says it is the very fact that you have never been, which makes him want to take you. He wants to see what the effect of the scenery, and the costumes, and everything, would be on one who sees it all for the first time. Then he says you have great talent in the way of personating people in dialogue, and he wants to see how it will affect you to hear it done in its perfection. He said it would be as good as a play to watch your face, and he added some very complimentary things about your eyes and cheeks, which you will not mind since you are his cousin. Oh, Daisy Morris, I know you will go! You would never be so cruel as to disappoint us. Mamma began to plan at once about your dress. She hopes you will wear that wine-colored silk, with plenty of white about it. That dress ought to be trimmed with ermine for such occasions, Daisy. Oh, dear! mamma's calling me."
Daisy was not sorry for this. Her brain was in a whirl. She needed to be alone.
Ermine trimming suggested the handsome face that had been raised to hers in petition to crown her hair with ermine. He knew she looked pretty in red and white. She knew it herself. Her wine-colored dress was lovely.