How promptly and indignantly such a question would have received an affirmative answer two months before! What should she say now?
“In what respect?” she faltered, more for the purpose of gaining time than because she did not understand the question.
“Well, in any respect I am almost prepared to say. I have not the honor of the man's acquaintance; but whatever I hear about him, or see in him, I dislike and distrust. Just at present his ways are specially disturbing. You noticed him this afternoon, I think! The young girl in his company belongs to my Sabbath-school. I have a deep interest in her, partly because she is the sort of girl who is always more or less in danger in this wicked world, and partly because she is capable of strongly influencing another, who is a special protégé of mine.”
“Who is the girl?” Gracie's manner was abrupt, and her voice constrained. It was evident that she was making great effort to control herself, and appear indifferent to all parties.
The doctor took no notice of her constraint.
“Her name is Mason. Hester Mason. She attends the Packard Place Sabbath-school, which you know I superintend. She is motherless, and worse than fatherless; is a clerk in one of the Fourth Avenue stores, and is, or was, inclined to be what is called gay. I do not know that that term conveys any special meaning to you; in young men I think they call the same line of conduct 'fast.' I hope and believe that you would not well understand either term; yet, I think, possibly, that watching her this afternoon in a public hall will give you some conception of the stretch that there is between yourself and her.”
CHAPTER XXII. — “SOME PEOPLE ARE HARD TO WARN.”
Had Dr. Everett desired in a few words to show Gracie the gulf between herself and the man who had been the girl's companion for the afternoon, perhaps he could not have formed his sentence better.