"And what has he done for you, Amarilly, that you are so anxious he should have a rug?"

"He's larnin' me readin', writin', spellin', and figgers."

"Don't you go to school?"

"No; I hev to bring in wages and help ma with the washin's."

"I'll teach you, Amarilly," she said impulsively. "I'm sure I'm more proficient in those branches than the Boarder."

"He sez," admitted Amarilly, "that it won't take him long to larn me all he knows; but you see--" She spoke with delicate hesitancy and evident embarra.s.sment. "It's orful good in you to want to larn me--but he might feel hurt-like if I was to quit him."

"You are right, Amarilly. You are a loyal little girl. But I tell you what we will do about it. When you have learned all that the Boarder feels he can teach you, you shall go to night-school. There is one in connection with St. Mark's. I will see that you enter there."

"I didn't know thar was one fer girls," said Amarilly. "I'm glad thar's a way fer me to git eddicated, fer I must hev larnin' afore I kin go on the stage. Mr. Vedder, the ticket-seller to Barlow's, told me so."

"Amarilly,"--and an earnest note crept into the gay, young voice--"you may find things that you will like to do more than to go on the stage."

"No!" a.s.serted the youthful aspirant, "Thar ain't nuthin' else I'd like so well."

"Amarilly, I am going to tell you something. Once, not long ago, I had the stage fever, but I think I know now there is something--something I should like better."

"What?" queried Amarilly skeptically.

"I can't tell you now, but you have a long time yet in which to decide your future. Tell me what I can do to help your mother."

"If you could git us more washin's," exclaimed Amarilly eagerly, "it would help heaps. We could take in lots more than we do now."

"Let me think. You see we keep a laundress; but--does your mother do up very fine things--like laces--carefully?"

"She does," replied Amarilly glibly. "She kin do 'em orful keerful, and we dry the colored stuffs in the shade. And our clo'es come out snow- white allers, and we never tears laces nor git in too much bluin' or starch the way some folks does."

"Then I'll give you my address and you can come for my fine waists; and let me see, I am sure I can get St. Mark's laundry work for you, too."

"You're orful good, Miss King. This is where we hev to turn down this 'ere court."

The "court" appeared to Miss King more like an alley. The advent of the brougham in the little narrow right-of-way filled every window with hawk-eyed observers. About the Jenkins's doorstep was grouped the entire household from the Boarder to the baby, and the light, musical voices of children floating through the soft spring air fell pleasantly upon the ears of the young settlement worker.

"So this is where you live, Amarilly?" she asked, her eyes sparkling as she focussed them on the family. "You needn't come for the washing the first time. I will bring it myself so I can see all your little brothers. Be sure to come to the Guild next Sat.u.r.day, and then I'll have the rug for you to take home. Goodbye, dear."

Knowing that she was observed by myriad eyes, Amarilly stepped loftily from the brougham and made a sweeping stage courtesy to her departing benefactress.

"Are you on the stage now, Amarilly?" asked Co eagerly as she came to meet her sister.

"No; but she," with a wave of her hand toward the swiftly gliding electric, "is agoin to help me git eddicated, and she has give me a beautiful rug fer the Boarder, and we're agoin' to hev her waists to wash, and Mr. St. Mark's clo'es, and she told all the scholars to sew like me 'cause' I sewed the best, and I've larned how to set our table.

We mustn't stack up the knife and fork and spoon on ends any more. The knife goes to the right, the fork to the left of the plate, and the spoon goes back of it and the tumbler and the napkin, when you has 'em, to the right."

"I do declare, Amarilly, if it ain't jest like a fairy story!" cried Mrs. Jenkins enthusiastically. "You allers did strike luck."

"You bet!" cried Bobby admiringly. "Things go some where Amarilly is."

Amarilly was happier even than she had been on the night of the eventful matinee day. The electric brougham had seemed a veritable fairy G.o.dmother's coach to her. But it was not the ride that stood uppermost in her memory as she lay awake far into the night; it was the little word of endearment uttered in caressing cadence.

"No one ain't ever called me that afore," she murmured wistfully. "I s'pose ma ain't hed time, and thar was no one else to keer."

Impulsively and tenderly her thin little arm encircled the baby sleeping beside her.

"Dear!" she whispered in an awed tone. "Dear!"

Iry answered with a sleepy, cooing note.

CHAPTER III

Colette King was not one whom the voice of the people of St. Mark's would proclaim as the personification of their ideal of a pastor's wife, yet John Meredith loved her with the love that pa.s.seth all understanding. Perhaps the secret of her charm for him lay in the fact that she treated him as she did other men--men who did not wear a surplice. And yet his surplice and all that pertained thereto were matters of great moment to the rector of St. Mark's. Little traces of his individuality were evident in the fashioning of this clerical garment. A pocket for his handkerchief was st.i.tched on the left side.

The flowers, the baptismal font, the altar cloth, and the robes of the vested choir he insisted should be immaculate in whiteness. White, the color of the lily, he declared, was the emblem of purity. There were members of his flock so worldly minded as to whisper insinuatingly that white was extremely becoming to Colette King. Many washerwomen had applied for the task of laundering the ecclesiastical linen; many had been tried and found wanting. So after her interview with Amarilly, Colette asked the rector of St. Mark's to call at her house "on important business."

From the time he was ten years old until he became rector of St. Mark's, John Meredith had been a member of the household of his guardian, Henry King, and had ever cheerfully and gladly borne with the caprices of the little Colette.

He answered the present summons promptly and palpitatingly. It had been two weeks since he had remonstrated with Colette for the surprisingly sudden announcement, made in seeming seriousness, that she was going to study opera with a view to going on the stage. The fact that she had a light, sweet soprano adapted only to the rendition of drawing-room ballads did not lessen in his eyes the probability of her carrying out this resolve.

She had met his reproving expostulations in a spirit of bantering raillery and replied with a defiance of his opinion that had pierced his heart with arrow-like swiftness. Since then she had studiously avoided meeting him, and he was not sure whether he was now recalled to listen to a reiteration of her intentions or to receive an anodyne for the bitterness of her remarks at their last interview.

"I sent for you, John," she said demurely and without preamble, "to see if you have found a satisfactory laundress yet for the surplices."

"Colette!" he exclaimed in rebuking tone, his face reddening at her question which he supposed to be made in mere mockery.

"I am not speaking to you as Colette King," she replied with a look half cajoling, half flippant, "but as a teacher in the Young Woman's Auxiliary Guild to the rector of St. Mark's. You see I no longer lead a foolish, futile life. Here is the evidence in the case," holding up a slender pink forefinger. "See how it is p.r.i.c.ked! For three Sat.u.r.day afternoons I have shown little girls that smelled of fried potatoes how to sew. I shall really learn something myself about the feminine art of needlework if I continue in my present straight, domestic path."

"Colette, you cannot know how glad I am to hear this. Why did you try to make me think the laundry work was--"

"But the laundry work _is_ the main issue. Yesterday I had quite decided to give up this uninteresting work."

Watching him warily, she let the shadow in his eyes linger a moment before she continued:

"And then there came into my cla.s.s a new pupil, poorly clad and ignorant, but so redolent of soapsuds and with such a freshly laundered look that I renewed my inclinations to charity. I took her home in my electric, and she lived at a distance that gave me ample time to listen to the complete chronicles of her young life. Her father is dead. Her mother was left with eight children whom she supports by taking in washing. They have a boarder and they go around the dining-room table twice. My new pupil's name is Amarilly Jenkins, and she has educational longings which cannot be satisfied because she has to work, so I am going to enter her in St. Mark's night-school when she has finished a special course with the private tutor she now has."

"Colette," said the young minister earnestly, "why do you continually try to show yourself to me in a false light? It was sweet in you to take this little girl home in your brougham and to feel an interest in her improvement."

"Not at all!" protested Colette. "My trend at present may appear to be charitable, but Amarilly and I have a common interest--a fellow feeling--that makes me wondrous kind. We both have longings to appear in public on the stage."

At this sudden challenge, this second lowering of the red flag, John's face grew stern.

"Amarilly," continued the liquid voice,--"has had more experience in stage life than I have had. She has commenced at the lowest round of the dramatic ladder of fame. She scrubs at the Barlow Theatre, and she is quite familiar with stage lore. Her hero is the man who plays the role of Lord Algernon in _A Terrible Trial_."

He made no reply, and Colette presently broke the silence.