Had she heard the report given below of this brief conversation, she might have been discouraged, for she was but a young worker after all, and had not met with many rebuffs.
"Mamma, she is a regular little fanatic," so Alice affirmed. "You ought to have heard her talk to me! It sounded just like quotations from that old book of sermons that grandma used to pore over. I didn't know what she meant."
"Probably she did not either," was the comment of this Christian mother. "Some very young people occasionally fall into that style, talking heroics, using theological terms of which they can not grasp the meaning, and fancy it a higher type of religion. She will probably know both less and more as she grows older."
Then was Miss Benedict's pupil, Ella, emboldened to come to the rescue of her teacher's reputation:
"But, mamma, she is not so very young. I saw her birthday book, and the date made her twenty in September."
"Indeed!" said Mrs. Ansted, with amused smile, "that is quite a patriarchal age. She certainly ought to be well posted in all theological dogmas by this time. My dear, it is one of the worst ages for a young woman—if she isn't absorbed with an engagement by that time to fancy herself superior."
"Oh, mamma! you don't know Miss Benedict. She doesn't fancy herself superior to anybody. She is just as sweet and lovely as she can be. All the girls like her, and I think she has the nicest religion of anybody I know!" This outburst was from Fannie.
"Very well, dear," answered the mother complacently; "admire her as much as you like. She is quite as safe a shrine as any for a young girl like you to worship at. You must always have some one. I am glad the girls like her, poor thing; her life must be doleful enough at best. It is certainly a great change." And the benevolent mother sighed in sympathy. She was glad to be able to put what she thought was a little sunshine from her elegant home into the poor music-teacher's lot. She even wondered, as she waited for her carriage to drive down town, whether the sprained ankle were not a providential arrangement to enable her to give a few days of rest and luxury to this unfortunate girl.
This thought she kept quite to herself. She did not quite accept such strained and peculiar views of Providence. It savored a little of fanaticism—a thing which she disapproved, and Mr. Ansted disliked; but then, some people thought such things, and it was barely possible that they were sometimes correct.
She went out to her carriage still thinking these thoughts, and Claire, watching her from the upper window, said to herself: