"But, Ester, it was prayer-meeting evening."
"Well, suppose it was. There is prayer-meeting every week, and there isn't this particular singer very often, and Uncle Ralph was disappointed. I thought you believed in honoring your parents."
"You forget, dear Ester, that father said he was particularly anxious that I should do as I thought right, and that he should not have purchased the tickets if he had remembered the meeting. Father likes consistency."
"Well, that is just the point. I want to know if you call it inconsistent to leave your prayer meeting for just one evening, no matter for what reason?"
Abbie laughed in answer. "Do you know, Ester, you wouldn't make a good lawyer, you don't stick to the point. It isn't a great many reasons that might be suggested that we are talking about, it is simply a concert." Then more gravely—"I try to be very careful about this matter. So many detentions are constantly occurring in the city, that unless the line were very closely-drawn I should not get to prayer-meeting at all. There are occasions, of course, when I must be detained; but under ordinary circumstances it must be more than a concert that detains me."
"I don't believe in making religion such a very solemn matter as that all amounts to; it has a tendency to drive people away from it."
The look on Abbie's face, in answer to this testily spoken sentence, was a mixture of bewilderment and pain.
"I don't understand"—she said at length—"How is that a solemn matter? If we really expect to meet our Savior at a prayer-meeting, isn't it a delightful thought? I am very happy when I can go to the place of prayer."
Ester's voice savored decidedly of the one which she was wont to use in her very worst moods in that long dining-room at home.
"Of course I should have remembered that Mr. Foster would be at the prayer-meeting, and not at the concert; that was reason enough for your enjoyment."