"Why, the prayer-meeting at the First Church. There is always a meeting there on Wednesday nights."
Miss Banks turned herself slowly away from the book she was examining and fixed her clear, cold gray eyes on Marion:
"And so there has been every Wednesday evening during the five years that we have been in school together, I presume. To what can I be indebted for such an invitation at this late day?"
It was very hard for Marion not to get angry. She knew this cold composure was intended as a rebuke to herself for presuming to have withdrawn from the clique that had hitherto spent much time together.
"What is the use of this?" she asked; a shade of impatience in her voice, though she tried to control it. "You know, Miss Banks, that I profess to have made a discovery during the last few weeks; that I try to arrange all my actions with a view to the new revelations of life and duty which I have certainly had; in simple language you know that, whereas, I not long ago presumed to scoff at conversion, and at the idea of a life abiding in Christ, I believe now that I have been converted, and that the Lord Jesus is my Friend and Brother; I want to tell you that I have found rest and peace in him. Is it any wonder that I should desire it for my friends? I do honestly crave for you the same experience that I have enjoyed, and to that end I have asked you to attend the meeting with me to-night."
It is impossible to describe the changes on Miss Banks' face during this sentence. There was a touch of embarrassment, and more than a touch of incredulity, and over all a look of great amazement. She continued to survey Marion from head to foot with those cold, gray eyes, for as much as a minute after she had ceased speaking. Then she said, speaking slowly, as if she were measuring every word:
"I am sure I ought to be grateful for the trouble you have taken; the more so as I had not presumed to think that you had any interest in either my body or my soul. But as I have had no new and surprising revelations, and know nothing about the Friend and Brother of whom you speak, I may be excused from coveting the like experience with yourself, however delightful you may have found it. As to the meeting, I went once to that church to attend a prayer-meeting, too, and if there can be a more refined and long drawn-out exhibition of dullness than was presented to us there, I don't know where to look for it. I wonder why the school-bell doesn't ring? It is three minutes past the time by my watch."
Marion, without an attempt at a reply, turned and went swiftly down the hall. She was glad that just then the tardy bell pealed forth, and that she was obliged to go at once to the recitation-room and involve herself in the intricacies of algebra.
Without this incentive to self-control, she felt that she would have given way to the hot disappointed tears that were choking in her throat. How sad her heart was as she sat there alone in the prayer-room. It was early and but few were present. She had never felt so much alone. The companionship which had been so close and so constant during the few weeks past seemed suddenly to have been removed from her, and when she essayed to go back to the old friend, she had stood coldly and heartlessly—aye, worse than that—mockingly aloof.
She had overheard her, that very afternoon, detailing to one of the under teachers, fragments of the conversation in the library. Marion's heart was wounded to its very depths. Perhaps it is little wonder that she had made no other attempt to secure company for the evening. There were school-girls by the score that she might have asked; doubtless some one of the number would accept her invitation, but she had not thought so. She had shrunken from any other effort, in mortal terror.