Suffice it to say that the task was accomplished, and among the most attentive listeners to the great speaker that evening was Sallie's father, while she sat at home and mended a badly torn jacket, and cried now and then, and was glad and sorry and proud and frightened and hopeful by turns all that long evening.
I am not sure but it was better for her that she sat at home. I don't know just what she might have done had she been in the hall to see her father, at the close of the meeting, shamble forward with the crowd, and sign his name to the total abstinence pledge.
She might have screamed out in her excitement, or she might have fainted; for although there were those who said—some with a sneer, and some with a sigh—that “signing the pledge would not amount to anything; the miserable fellow could not keep a pledge to save his life!” Sally would have thought nothing of the kind. She had faith in her father's word.
It is a wonderful stimulus to have some one who believes in us.
CHAPTER XXV. — “WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH?”
“Do you know,” said Mrs. Roberts, addressing Gracie Dennis, who, with young Ried, had waited in the hall for her to join them (they were ready for the lecture, and were to take up Mr. Roberts on the way): “Do you know that I have a desire which I see no way of realizing? If Mr. Colson should bring his sister with him to-night I should like so much to get possession of her and bring her home with me! But I have been planning all day, and see no possible excuse for such an apparently wild proceeding.”
I want you to notice how naturally Mrs. Roberts said “Mr. Colson”; she never talked about Dirk under any other name; she even taught herself to think of him as “Mr. Colson.” Consequently, when she spoke the name in his presence, there was not a trace of unnaturalness in tone or manner. The others tried in vain to follow her example. Dr. Everett could not speak of him in this way without slight hesitation and a touch of embarrassment. “The truth is,” said he, “I think Dirk all the week, and on the Sabbath I find it impossible to reach up to 'Mr. Colson' without an effort.” There was no touch of “reaching up” or reaching down, about Mrs. Roberts' talk with her pupils. It is possible that this is one link in the chain of influence which she was weaving around them.
Gracie Dennis' face expressed curiosity, and when they were seated in the carriage, she referred to the cause:—