CONFERENCE MEETING.
The school-room was a large apartment in the basement of the factory which had been used as a drying-room until it became necessary to find for the increasing numbers of the little flock more spacious accommodations. The basement was entered by a door at the end of the building opposite that by which the operatives entered the factory, and the hours were so timed that the children went and came without disturbance to themselves or others. The path that led to the basement door was neatly bordered with flowering plants and bushes, and sunlight was always to be found there, if anywhere in the valley, from eight o'clock till two.
Leonhard walked to the factory with Sister Benigna, to whose conduct Loretz had consigned him when called away by the tower bell.
At the door of the basement Mr. Wenck was standing with a printed copy of Handel's sacred oratorio of The Messiah in his hand. Evidently he was waiting for Sister Benigna.
But when she had said to Leonhard, "Pass on to the other end of the building and you will find the entrance, and Mr. Spener's office in the corner as you enter," and Leonhard had thanked her, and bowed and passed on, and she turned to Mr. Wenck, it was very little indeed that he said or had to say about the music which he held in his hand.
"I have no doubt that all the preparation necessary for to-morrow evening is being made," he said. "You may need this book. But I did not come to talk about it. Sister Benigna," he continued in a different tone, and a voice not quite under his control, "is it not unreasonable to have passed a sleepless night thinking of Albert and Elise?"
"Very unreasonable." But he had not charged her, as she supposed, with that folly, as his next words showed.
"It is, and yet I have done it—only because all this might have been so easily avoided."
"And yet it was unavoidable," said she, looking toward the school-room door as one who had no time to waste in idle talk.
"Not that I question the wisdom of the resort if all were of one mind," said Mr. Wenck, who had the dreary all-day before him, and was not in the least pressed for time. "But I can see that even on the part of Brother Loretz the act was not a genuine act of faith."