"Well, of course, some of us can," Eurie answered. "You ought to be able to, anyway. There you are in a school-room, surrounded by hundreds of people who ought to go; and in a boarding-house, coming in contact with dozens of another stamp, who are in equal need. I should think you had opportunities enough."
"I know it," Marion said, promptly. "If I were only situated as you are, with nobody but a father and mother, and a brother and a couple of sisters to ask—people who are of no special consequence to you, and about whom it will make no personal difference to you whether they go to church or not—it would be some excuse for not bringing anybody; but a boarding-house full of men and women, and a room full of school girls!—consider your privileges, Marion Wilbur."
Eurie laughed.
"Oh, I can get Nell to go," she said. "He nearly always does what I want him to. But I was thinking how many you have to work among."
"Six people are as good to work among as sixty, until you get them all," Marion answered, quickly.
As for Ruth, it was only the darkness that hid her curling lip. She someway could not help disliking people who, like Nellis Mitchell, always did what they were asked to do, just to oblige. Also, she dreaded this new plan. She had no one to ask, no one to influence. So she said to herself, gloomily, although (knowing that it was untrue) she did not venture to say it aloud. She gave consent, of course, to the proposition to try by personal effort to increase the number at prayer-meeting. It would be absurd to object to it. She did not care to own that she shrunk from personal effort of this sort; it was a grief to her very soul that she did so shrink.
"Remember, we stand pledged to try for one new face at the prayer-meeting," Eurie said, as she bade them good night. "Pledged to try, you understand, Marion, we can at least do that, even if we don't succeed."
"In the meantime, remember that we have our Bible evening to-morrow," Marion returned. "You are to come bristling with texts from your standpoint; it will not do to forget that."
