 | CHAPTER III.
IN CHURCH. A woman in armor |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
IN CHURCH.
THE bells of Little Boston began promptly
at half-past ten on Sunday morning
to clang and call unto all people and
each other. Grace Church clashed its silver
against the brass of the First Presbyterian,
Welsh and German tinklers sounded from all
the outskirts, and the Baptist iron gong thundered
its creed of “Under! under!” across
them all.
Little Boston prided herself on her keeping
of the Sabbath. Other towns had low loungers
and Sabbath-breakers, fast driving and afternoon
promenading. But Little Boston put on
her Sunday clothes at six in the morning and
wore them until ten at night. She took her
children to church by the ear. Her horses
moved in subdued trots, and her wheels turned
with a modified whirr. She gave more money
to the heathen than perhaps any other corporation
on this terrestrial ball, and had her own missionaries
in Africa, China, and the Isles. In
and sanctified town had there not been so many
wretches in her outskirts—so many breaking
hearts and starving souls. Souls who wouldn't
be patronized by her churches—impaled on the
lance of her critical eye. However, this was
not Little Boston's fault. She meant to be a
model, and did all in her power to drive such
tarnishers away.
“Chime-tinkle-dong,” chorussed the bells,
while Helen and Nina and George mingled with
the church-going crowd, Helen walking quickly
because her hands must touch the organ before
the last sound died away.
Grace Church was built of rough-hewn stone
and capped with beautiful towers. You entered
its great door, went through a vestibule and up
spacious steps into the assembly-room, a dim,
religious place with Gothic arches and mysterious
chancel. Paintings and texts were on the walls,
and here and there in niches were exquisite marbles.
The windows were many and narrow,
and filled with glass which turned common white
light into the very wine of light.
This church was Helen Dimmock's dearest
place. She came to it nearly every day and sat
with her organ, living the life she loved. The
arches had quivered a thousand times to her
music, and through those dusky windows she
drew many of her compositions.
Even when much people crowded the place
in her organ-loft, the great pipes glittering above
her, the choir below and separated from her.
And when her hands fell on the keys at the
final clash of bells, she neither saw nor heard any
one, save the God whom she thus worshipped
with all her soul.
The cream of Little Boston belonged to Grace
Church, and it rose richly this morning.
Nina and George moved softly to their own
quiet seat. Nina wore widow's weeds. It was
her fancy, and Helen did not oppose it. Geroge
displayed himself to an admiring world as a
very small and jolly but Sabbath-keeping sailor.
He manipulated his “yankers” on the sly, but
kept an eye on the clergyman.
A thrilling voluntary filled the place, while
silken garments ceased not to rustle up aisles.
The Stokesbury-Joneses were not late, however.
They were a model family, and were
never late. Precisely fifteen minutes after the
first bell they filed out of their residence and began
a stately march upon the house of worship;
so that just as the last bell lifted its voice Mr.
Jones stood holding the pew-door open for the
entrance of Mrs. Stokesbury-Jones, Miss Stokesbury-Jones,
Misses Clara, Emma Stokesbury,
and Flora. Thus they always had time to compose
themselves, settle their bonnet-ribbons, attend
to their personal devotions, and array their
faces in disapproval against late comers arrived.
Now, if you do not know the Stokesbury-Joneses,
you ought to know them. Think not
of going to Little Boston without a letter of introduction
to them, unless you mean to live
unknown and die as the beasts perish! The
Stokesbury-Joneses are the flaming sword which
guards the Little Boston Eden. If they let you
pass, you are “one of us.” If they “don't
know you,” go hide your head; you are a cipher
in the universe; there is no place for you;
you are outcast from society!
The Stokesbury-Joneses live on an avenue in
a substantial brown house. All its appointments
are perfect but unique, as befits a family
superior to all others. Their greatness came
through the mother. Mr. Jones is a slender,
gentlemanly person, of very little account. He
cannot trace his blood back through an old
English house to renowned folks! To be sure,
he made much of the money which supports
this grandeur. But he is not a Stokesbury.
His wife is; and likewise are his children. He
feels his position; but it is good to stand even
on the steps of the throne. They all love him
dearly—as an inferior creature. One can almost
imagine those daughters standing in a solemn
row, each with her own prayer-book in her hand,
chanting as a response: “For having been
born Stokesburys through the agency of one
Jones, Lord make us truly thankful!”
Good it is to have the blood of brave and true
to set yourself up as an exponent of the
great past!
When Stanthorne came to Little Boston, some
friends, more mindful of his social life than he
himself was, thrust into his hand the necessary
ticket to Little Boston society. Stanthorne
took it absently and threw it into a desk.
Weeks afterwards it turned up, and he presented
it as an amusing experiment—for Stanthorne
had something of the mustang in him, and did
not propose trotting under social harness. But
he was graciously received, his connections investigated,
and himself passed. Young men
may always be quoted as in good demand in the
markets of this world, if at all near the average.
Little Boston was not glutted with them—not
mentioning, of course, the university students,
who might come and might go, while the Misses
Stokesbury-Jones, like Tennyson's “brook,”
went on forever! Accordingly Stanthorne was
made at home among “Us;” accorded the
privilege of meeting the young ladies, and
pressed to occupy their pew in church.
Unconscious of the great honor done him by
the offer of sitting room on this sacred bench,
he came this morning with a matter-of-little-consequence
air, and placed himself among
“Us,” while the voluntary yet filled the place.
Stanthorne was keenly sensitive to musical
influence, as are all imaginative natures. The
but the organist was high up in a dim loft, her
face from him. Yet by this swift glance he discovered
the woman, and traced her dark, slight
outline.
All through service he was with her. Again
and again he quivered under her touch. I dare
say he never made responses more heartily in
his life. There were such power and meaning
in those sudden music bursts.
The clergyman preached a sweet discourse
with trilled r's. I am ashamed to confess it was
Stanthorne's habit in church to take a dish of
spiritual hash. That is to say, he chopped the
meat of the discourse among the potatoes of his
own thoughts, and onions of jokes he meant to
put in next paper, and scattered throughout a
little pepper of criticism and a little salt of compunction.
He was peculiarly a sinner. I will
not undertake to excuse him to a righteous
world never touched by such infirmities, but
will merely mention, by the way, that he had an
electric temperament, and could only follow a
good conductor.
To-day, however, he took no spiritual hash,
but worshipped like those who followed a star
towards a new life.
“Who it that organist?” he inquired of
himself after service. Yet of the Stokesbury-Joneses
he inquired not.
Stanthorne resisted the ebb-tide, and anchored
of the attention he might attract.
Helen was alone when she came down from
her bench. The choir was gone, and few footsteps
sounded below. She looked across the
church, uncovering her face before her God.
Faces are strange creations. You meet your
friend every day of your life, yet perhaps never
see him. He looks jolly, or woe-begone, or
comical. I have seen fools masked in the
gravity of wisdom. What he is may be
sheathed from you as long as he wears flesh,
unless you some time surprise him and steal
him out of himself.
Stanthorne recalled Helen's face, but it now
awed him. He was sensitive and imaginative,
as I told you, and Miss Dimmock would probably
have left an impression on him deeper than
any made by his mother's damsel or the school-mistress,
had he not immediately struck cool
air and caught sight of a typo across the street.
Which let practical affairs over him with a rush.
| CHAPTER III.
IN CHURCH. A woman in armor | |