"This is where the little children are; Miss Rider is going to teach them."
Eurie halted.
"I'm going in here," she said, decidedly, to Flossy. "That is the very lady I am in search of." And seeing Flossy hesitate, she added: "Oh, you may go on, it is just as well to divide our forces; we may each have some wonderful adventure. You go your way and I will go mine, and we'll see what will come of it."
The tent was full apparently; but that spirit which was rife at Chautauqua, and which prompted everybody to try to look out a little for the comfort of everybody else, made a seat full of ladies crowd a little and make room for her. Rows and rows of little people with smiling faces and shining eyes! It was a pretty sight. Eurie gave eager attention to the lady who was talking to them, and laughed a little to herself over the dissimilarity of their appearance.
"Hair and eyes and height, and everything else, totally unlike me!" she said. "She is older than I, too, ever so much. She doesn't look as I thought Miss Rider would."
But what she was saying proved to be very interesting, not only to the little people, but to Eurie. She listened eagerly. It was important to discover what had been so stirring the Sunday-school world all the week. She was not left in doubt; the story was plainly, clearly, fascinatingly told; it was that tender one of the sick man so long waiting, waiting to be helped into the pool; disappointed year after year, until one blessed day Jesus came that way and asked one simple question, and received an eager answer, and gave one brief command, and, lo! the work was done! The long, long years of pain and trial were over! Do you think this seemed like a wonderful story to Eurie? Do you think her cheeks glowed with joy over the thought of the great love and the great power of Jesus?
Alas, alas! to her there was no beauty in him. This simple tender story did not move her as the commonplace account of a common sickness and common recovery given in a village paper would have done. The very most that she thought of it was this: "That Miss Rider has a good deal of dramatic power. How well she tells the story! But dear me! how stupid it must be. What is the use of taking so much trouble for these little midgets? They don't understand the story, and of what use would it be to them if they did? Something that happened to somebody hundreds of years ago."
But now her attention was arrested by the sound of a very loud whisper just behind her, given in a childish voice. "Miss Rider, Miss Rider," the child was saying, and emphasizing her whisper by a pull at a lady's dress. Eurie turned quickly; the dress belonged to a young, fair girl, with fresh glowing face and large bright eyes, that shone now with feeling as she listened eagerly to this story, and to the comments of the children concerning it. Then she in turn whispered to the lady nearest her: "Is it Miss Rider who is teaching?" "No, it is Mrs. Clark, of Newark. That is Miss Rider leaning against a post."
Then Eurie looked back to her. "She is no older than I," she murmured; "indeed not so old, I should think. Her hair must be exactly the color of mine, and we are about the same height. I wonder if we do look in the least alike? What do I care!" Yet still she looked; the bright face fascinated her. The little child had won the lady's attention; and the lips and eyes, and indeed the whole face, were vivid with animation as she bent low and answered some troubled question, appealing to the diagram on the board, and making clear her answer by rapid gestures with her fingers. The lady beside Eurie volunteered some more information.
"Miss Rider was to have taught this class, I heard. I wonder why she didn't?"