"We know each other," Grace said, brightly, "at least we ought to. We do when we see each other plainly enough. I have been meaning to call with papa, Miss Mitchell, but I haven't been able to, yet; I am only a school girl, you know."
Eurie preferred to ignore the calling question; she had little sympathy with that phase of fashionable life; so she plunged at once into another subject.
"Are you going to the hall to-night, Miss Dennis, to help in getting up the tableau entertainment?"
Something in the quick way in which Grace Dennis said, "Oh, no," made Marion anxious to question further.
"Why not?" she asked. "Miss Mitchell says they want all the ladies of talent; I'm sure you and I ought to be there. I can imagine you in a splendid tableau, Gracie; perhaps you would better go and help. To be sure, I haven't been really invited myself, but I guess I can get in somehow. Won't you go with us now?"
"I can't, Miss Wilbur. I should like to go; I enjoy tableaux ever so much; but papa does not approve of making tableaux of Scripture scenes. You know, ministers have to be in advance on all these subjects."
Grace spoke in an apologetic tone, and with a flushed face, as one who had been obliged into saying a rude thing, and must make it sound as best she could.
"Are they to be Scripture scenes?" Eurie asked; and in the same breath added: "Why does he disapprove?"
"I don't think I could give his reasons. He thinks them irreverent, sometimes, I fancy; but I am not sure. I never heard him say very much on the subject; but I know quite well that he would not like me to go. Don't you know, Miss Mitchell, that clergymen always have to stand aloof from so many things, because they are set up as examples for others to follow?"
"But what is the use of it if others don't follow?" said quick-witted Eurie. "We must look into this question. I have never thought of it. It will have to be put down with that long list of subjects on which I have never had any thoughts; that list swells every day."