HOW did they ever get into such a dreadful snarl as this, anyway?

It was Eurie Mitchel who asked this question. She had seated her guests—Flossy Shipley and Marion Wilbur—in the two chairs her small sleeping-room contained, and then curled herself, boarding-school fashion, on the foot of her bed. To be sure it is against the rule, at this present time, for girls in boarding-schools to make sofas of their beds. So I have no doubt it was, when Eurie was a school-girl; nevertheless, she did it.

“Where should I sit?” she asked her mother, one day, when that good lady remonstrated. “On the floor?”

And her mother, looking around the room, and noting the scarcity of chairs, and remembering that there were none to spare from any other portion of the scantily-furnished house, said, “Sure enough!” and laughed off the manifest poverty revealed in the answer, instead of sighing over it. And Eurie went on, making a comfortable seat of her bed, whenever occasion required.

On this particular evening they had been discussing affairs at the Erskine mansion, and Eurie had broken in with her exclamation, and waited for Marion to answer.

“Why,” said Marion, “I know very little about it. There are all sorts of stories in town, just as is always the case; but you needn’t believe any of them; there is not enough truth sprinkled in to save them. Ruth says her father married at a time when he was weak, both in body and mind—just getting up from a long and very serious illness, during which this woman had nursed him with patience and skill, and, the doctors said, saved his life. He discovered, in some way—I don’t know whether she told him so or not, but somehow he made the discovery—that she lost possession of her heart during the process, and that he had gotten it, without any such intention on his part, and, in a fit of gratitude, he married her in haste, and repented at leisure.”

“How perfectly absurd!” said Eurie, in indignation. “The idea that he had no way of showing his gratitude but by standing up with her, and assenting to half a dozen solemn statements, none of which were true, and making promises that he couldn’t keep! I have no patience with that sort of thing.”

“Well, but,” said Flossy, coming in with gentle tone and alleviating words, just as she always did come into the talk of these two. “The woman was a poor, friendless girl then, living a dreadful boarding-house life, entirely dependent on her needle for her daily bread. Think how sorry he must have been for her!”

Eurie’s lip curled.

“He might have been as sorry for me as he pleased, and I dare say I shouldn’t have cared if he had expressed his sorrow in dollars and cents; but to go and marry me, promise to love and cherish, and all that sort of thing, and not to mean a word of it, was simply awful.”

“Have you been studying the marriage service lately?” Marion asked, with a light laugh and a vivid blush. “You seem strangely familiar with it.”

“Why, I have heard it several times in my life,” Eurie answered, quickly, her cheeks answering the other’s blushes. “And I must say it seems to me a ceremony not to be trifled with.”

“Oh, I think so too!” Flossy said, in great seriousness and sweet earnestness. “But what I mean is, Judge Erskine, of course, did not realize what he was promising. It was only a little after Ruth’s mother died, you know, and he—well, I think he could not have known what he was about.”

“I should think not!” said Eurie. “And then to deliberately desert her afterward! living a lie all these years! I must say I think Judge Erskine has behaved as badly as a man could.”

“No,” said Marion; “he has repented. He might have gone on with his lie to the end of life, and she would have made no sign, it seems. The woman can keep a promise, whether he can or not. But think what it must have cost him to have told all this to Ruth! Why, I would rather tell my faults to the President than to Ruth Erskine! Oh, I think he has shown that there is nobility in his nature, and sincerity in his recent profession. It would have been so easy to have consoled his conscience with the plea that it was too late to make amends. Still, I confess I think as you do, Eurie. Marriage is a very solemn covenant—not to be entered into lightly, I should think; and, when its vows are taken, they are to be lived by. I don’t feel very gracious toward Judge Erskine.”

“Still, if the Lord Jesus and his own daughter can forgive him, I think we ought to be able to do so.”

It was Flossy’s voice again—low and quiet, but with that curious suggestion of power behind it that Flossy’s voice had taken of late. It served to quiet the two girls for a minute, then Marion said:

“Flossy Shipley, I’m not sure but you have our share of brains, as well as heart. To be sure, in one sense it is none of our business. I don’t believe he cares much whether we ever forgive him or not. But I believe I shall, and feel sorry for him, too. What a precious muddle he has made of life! How are they ever going to endure that woman?”

“Is she so very dreadful?”

This was Eurie’s insinuating question.

“Father and Nellis called, but I could not bring myself to go with them. I was sure I shouldn’t know what to say to Ruth. I tried to have them describe her, but father said she must be seen to be appreciated, and Nell would do nothing but shrug his shoulders and whistle.”

“She is simply terrible!” Marion said, with emphasis. “I didn’t stay fifteen minutes, and I heard more bad grammar and bad taste in the use of language than I hear in school in a week. And her style of dressing is—well,” said Marion, pausing to consider a strong way of putting it—“is enough, I should think, to drive Ruth Erskine wild. You know I am not remarkable for nervousness in that direction, and not supposed to be posted as to styles; but really, it would try my sense of the fitness of things considerably to have to tolerate such combinations as she gets up. Then she is fussy and garrulous and ignorant, and, in every way, disagreeable. I really don’t know how I am ever to—”

And at that point Marion Wilbur suddenly stopped.

“What about the daughter?” Eurie asked.

“Well,” said Marion, “I hardly know; she impresses you strangely. She is homely; that is, at first sight you would consider her very homely indeed; red hair—though why that shouldn’t be as much the orthodox color as brown, is a matter of fashion I presume—but she is large featured, and angular, and has the air and bearing that would be called exceedingly plain; for all that, there is something very interesting about her; I studied her for half an hour, and couldn’t decide what it was. It isn’t her smile, for she was extremely grave, hardly smiled at all. And I’m not sure that it is her conversation—I dare say that might be called commonplace—but I came away having a feeling of respect for her, a sort of liking that I couldn’t define, and couldn’t get away from.”

“Nellis liked her,” said Eurie. “He was quite decided in his opinion; said she was worth a dozen frippery girls with banged hair, and trains, and all that sort of thing, but he couldn’t give a definite reason, any more than you can, why he ‘approved of’ her, as he called it.”

“I don’t know what her tastes can be,” continued Marion. “She doesn’t play at all, she told me, and she doesn’t sing, nor daub in paints; that is one comfort for Ruth; she won’t have to endure the piano, nor help hang mussy-looking pictures in ‘true lights’—whatever lights they may be. But I should imagine she read some things that were worth reading. She didn’t parade her knowledge, however, if she has any. In short, she is a mystery, rather; I should like you to see her.”

“Perhaps she is fond of fancy-work,” suggested Flossy, somewhat timidly; whereupon Marion laughed.

“I don’t fancy you are to find a kindred spirit in that direction, my dear little Kittie!” she said, lightly. “No one to glance at Susan Erskine would think of fancy-work, for the whole evening. There is nothing in her face or manner, or about her attire, that would suggest the possibility of her knowing anything about fancy matters of any sort. I tell you her face is a strange one. I found myself quoting to my ‘inner consciousness’ the sentence: ‘Life is real, life is earnest,’ every time I looked at the lines about her mouth. Whatever else she can or can not do, I am morally certain that she can’t crochet. Girls, think of that name—Susan Erskine! Doesn’t it sound strangely? How do you suppose it sounds to Ruth? I tell you this whole thing is dreadful! I can’t feel reconciled to it. Do you suppose she will have to call that woman mother?”

“What does she call her now?”

“Well, principally she doesn’t call her at all. She says ‘you’ at rare intervals when she has to speak to her, and she said ‘she,’ when she spoke of her to me; not speaking disagreeably you know, but hesitatingly, as if she did not know what to say, or what would be expected of her. Oh, Ruth does well; infinitely better than I should, in her circumstances, I feel sure. I said as much to that disagreeable Judge Burnham who keeps staying there, for no earthly reason, that I can see, except to complicate Ruth’s trials. ‘How does your friend bear up under it?’ he asked me, with an insinuating air, as though he expected me to reveal volumes. ‘She bears it royally, just as she always does everything,’ I said, and I was dreadfully tempted to add: ‘Don’t you see how patiently she endures your presence here?’ Just as though I would tell him anything about it, if she tore around like a lunatic!”

“Oh, well, now,” said Eurie, oracularly, “there are worse crosses in life, I dare say, than Ruth’s having to call that woman mother.”

“Of course there are; nobody doubts it; the difficulty is that particular type of cross has just now come to her, and while she doesn’t have to bear those others which are worse, she does have to bear that; and it is a cross, and she needs grace to help her—just exactly as much grace as though there wasn’t anyone on earth called on to bear a harder trial. I never could understand why my burnt finger should pain me any the less because somebody else had burned her entire arm.”

At this point Flossy interrupted the conversation with one of those innocent, earnest questions which she was always in these days asking, to the no small confusion of some classes of people.

“Are these two women Christians?”

“That I don’t know,” Marion answered, after staring at the questioner a moment in a half dazed way. “I wondered it, too, I remember. Flossy Shipley, I thought of you while I sat there, and I said to myself, ‘She would be certain to make the discovery in less time than I have spent talking with them.’ But I don’t know how you do those things. What way was there for me to tell? I couldn’t sit down beside them and say, ‘Are you a Christian?’ could I? How is it to be done?”

Flossy looked bewildered.

“Why,” she said, hesitatingly, “I don’t know. I never thought there was anything strange about it. Why shouldn’t those things be talked of as well as any others? You discovered whether the young lady was fond of music and painting. I can’t see why it wouldn’t have been just as easy to have found out about her interests in more important matters.”

“But how would you have done it? Just suppose yourself to have been in Judge Erskine’s parlor, surrounded by all those people who were there last evening, how would you have introduced the subject which is of the most importance?”

“Why,” said Flossy, looking puzzled, “how do I know? How can I tell unless I had been there and talked it over? You might as well ask me how I should have introduced the question whether—well, for instance, whether they knew Mr. Roberts, supposing they had come from the same city, and I had reason to think it possible—perhaps probable—that they were his friends. It seems to me I should have referred to it very naturally, and that I should have been apt to do it early in our conversation. Now, you know it is quite possible—if not probable—that they are intimate friends of the Lord Jesus. Why couldn’t I have asked them about him?”

Marion and Eurie looked at each other in a sort of puzzled amusement, then Marion said:

“Still I am not sure that you have answered my question about how to begin on such a subject. You know you could have said, ‘Did you meet Mr. Roberts in Boston?’ supposing them to have been in Boston. But you could hardly say, ‘Did you meet the Lord Jesus there?’ I am not sure but that sounds irreverent to you. I don’t mean it to be; I really want to understand how those subjects present themselves to your mind.”

“I don’t believe I can tell you,” Flossy said, simply. “They have no special way of presenting themselves. It is all so new to me that I suppose I haven’t gotten used to it yet. I am always thinking about it, and wondering whether any new people can tell me anything new. Now I am interested in what you told me about that Susan, and I feel as though I should like to ask her whether there were any very earnest Christians where she used to live and whether they had any new ways of reading the Bible, and whether the young ladies had a prayer-meeting, and all those things, you know.”

Again Marion and Eurie exchanged glances. This didn’t sound abrupt, or out of place, or in any sense offensive to ideas of propriety. Yet who talked in that way among their acquaintances? And how had Flossy gotten ahead of them in all these things? It was a standing subject of wonderment among those girls how Flossy had outstripped them.

They were silent for a few minutes. Then Eurie suddenly changed the current of thought: “How strange that these changes should have come to Ruth and we know nothing about it until a mother and sister were actually domiciled! We are all so intimate, too. It seems that there are matters about which we have not learned to talk together.”

“Ruth was always more reserved than the rest of us,” Flossy said. “I am not so surprised at not knowing about her affairs; we are more communicative, I think. At least I have told you all about the changes that are to come to me, and I think you would tell me if you had anything startling, wouldn’t you?”

Marion rose up and went over to Flossy, and, bending, kissed her fair cheek.

“You little pink blossom,” she said, with feeling, “I’ll tell you all the nice things I can think of, one of these days. In the meantime I must go home; and remember, Eurie, you are not to do anything dreadful of any sort without telling Flossy and me beforehand.”

“I won’t,” said Eurie, with a conscious laugh, and the trio separated.

Two hours later Marion Wilbur was the recipient of the following note:

It was about this very hour that Eurie opened and looked at, in a maze of astonishment and bewilderment, a dainty envelope, of special size and design, from which there fell Marion Wilbur’s wedding-cards!