CHAPTER XIX.
KEEPING THE PROMISE.
T was curious how our four girls set about enlarging the prayer-meeting. That idea had taken hold of them as the next thing to be done.
"The wonder was," Eurie said, "that Christian people had not worked at it before. I am sure," she added, "that if anyone had invited me to attend, I should have gone long ago, just to please, if it was one that I cared to please."
And Marion answered with a smile:
"I am sure you would, too, with your present feelings."
Still none of them doubted but that they would have success. They saw little of each other during the days that intervened, and their plan necessarily involved the going alone, or with what company they could gather, instead of meeting and keeping each other company, as they had done in the first days of their prayer-meeting life.
Marion came first, and alone. She went forward to their usual seat with a very forlorn and desolate air. She had entered upon the work with enthusiasm, and with eager desire and expectation of success. To be sure she was a long time deciding whom to ask, and several times changed her plans.
At last her heart settled on Miss Banks, the friend with whom she had almost been intimate before these new intimacies gathered around her. Latterly they had said little to each other. Miss Banks had seemed to avoid Marion since that rainy Monday when they came in contact so sharply. She was not exactly rude, nor in the least unkind; she simply seemed to feel that the points of congeniality between them were broken, and so avoided her.