CHAPTER V.

A MORNING MEETING.

"WELL, little mountain worshipper, at it as hard as ever, I see; you show it in your eyes. What is being worshipped now?"

"Sir," said Dilly, flushing, but smiling a little; she had found it hard work to be angry with Hart Hammond, he was always so good-natured to her.

"Do you like the mountain as well as ever?"

"O, yes better than ever; I think it is just too lovely for anything, all about here."

"Just so. I never heard of a girl who didn't express herself in just exactly that way,—about a mountain or a piece of sponge cake; it doesn't make any difference which. But what you find to like so much, passes my comprehension; I think it is the slowest place I was ever in, in my life. What is it that you fancy?"

"Why, I fancy everything; the trees, and the flowers, and the birds, and the lovely breeze; there wasn't ever any breeze you know, Mr. Hart, in the city; at least there never came any down where we lived. It was just like an oven all the time; it makes me feel faint to think how hot it must be there this morning; and only see how the curtains blow here!"

"It is pretty warm in town, I presume; but then, I don't mind the heat so much, when there is anything going on; it is so dreadfully 'slow' up here; that is what I complain of. How is a fellow to occupy his time?"

"Isn't there a meeting most all the time down there where the big open building is?" Dilly asked the question somewhat timidly; she was now on ground of which she knew very little. She had been to no meeting since she came; she had very little idea of what sort they were; sometimes distant strains of music floated to her when she was out with Effie, and she often saw crowds of prettily dressed people hurrying by, and caught bits of talk about this speaker, and that song; but Mrs. Hammond went out only occasionally, during the day, and had never mentioned before her, the fact that there was anything of the kind going on. So, though Dilly's curiosity had been roused to the utmost, she had not felt at liberty to inquire.

"Most all the time!" Hart burst forth with a sarcastic laugh. "That is putting it mildly; there is a meeting all the time, from morning till night; or till noon, anyway; and again in the evening; I should think these people would be 'meetinged' to death. Haven't you been down to the 'big open building?'"

"O, yes! I've walked past it two or three times, when it was all empty: I saw ever and ever so many seats; I wonder if they are ever all filled up. Don't they have nice things there?"

"More than I know. Who wants to go to meetings such weather as this? On week days, too! Do you say you have never been to one of them?"

Dilly made haste to shut away a little sigh into her heart. What right had she to sigh, when so many wonderful blessings had come to her lot? Fresh mountain air, a cool room to sleep in every night, and constantly nice cool things to eat? "O, no! I have never been," she said quickly, and she thought the sigh was quite hidden; but Hart had been right about her eyes, everything showed there.

"And you want to go! Extraordinary taste; but I believe in letting folks do what they want to. There's a meeting down there this very minute; come on and we'll see what it is like."

"Oh!" said Dilly, and she clasped her two hands together, and they and the "oh" said a great deal. "You are very, very good, Mr. Hart, but I can't; Miss Effie is ready for her walk, and is waiting for me now, I am afraid."

"Stuff and nonsense! Let Miss Effie wait, then. Tell my mother that—here, I'll tell her myself. Mother," raising his voice as he caught a glimpse of her white morning robes passing from the hotel piazza to the tent, "I'm going to run away with Dilly."

"Run away with Dilly!" repeated Mrs. Hammond in a tone of wonder, as she came around the side of the tent. "Where is Dilly? Effie is ready for you, child."

"But I tell you Effie can't have her; I want her myself; I'm going to show her the tabernacle; she wants to know how the seats look with people in them. Get your hat, Dilly, I see the people trooping that way as though there was a sensation of some sort."

If Mr. West could have seen his daughter's cheeks just then, he would have been amazed; they were fairly blazing. She opened her lips to speak, then not knowing what to say turned and went into the tent to confront Mrs. Hammond. What would that lady say to her? Would she be angry with her, Dilly wondered.

She met Mrs. Hammond almost at the door of the tent; she looked very much amazed, and there was also another look in her eyes which Dilly did not understand.

"Did you ask him?" she began eagerly. "Did you ask Mr. Hart to take you to the tabernacle?"

"O, no indeed, ma'am," said Dilly in intense earnestness, "I would not have done such a thing for the world; I did not think of going anywhere at all; he was just saying he liked to be where things were going on, and I asked him if there wasn't a meeting of some kind at the big building where all the seats are. Then he asked if I had never been there; and he said he saw in my eyes that I wanted to go; but I did not mean to put it into my eyes, ma'am, indeed I didn't."

"Never mind," said Mrs. Hammond, and she was smiling now, "just get ready as quickly as you can; never mind Miss Effie, I will attend to her; and don't keep saying to Mr. Hart that you must hurry back; stay as long as he wants you to."

And while the much bewildered Dilly ran for hat and gloves, Mrs. Hammond looking fondly out at Hart as he sauntered about, making little hollows in the soil with the toe of his polished boot, said, "If this new fancy would only hold him until the eleven o'clock train goes out, I should have one day more of peace; but it is too much to hope for."

Out came Dilly, looking very neat and very happy, despite the bewilderment and embarrassment of the occasion.

"Give her a chance to look at everything, Hart; it is very kind in you to take the trouble."

Hart laughed good-naturedly; he thought himself, that the situation was queer. What would the "fellows" think to see him tramping off to a morning camp meeting with his baby sister's maid. He hardly understood his own motive; only she was such a queer little thing, this Dilly, with her flashing eyes and her eager ways, and her intense love for the mountains, and the clouds, and all the new sights and sounds.

There were plenty of new sights to hold her eyes this morning. Men and women and children, large and small, were gathering from all parts of the grounds, making speed toward the building; diving down the steps with apparent eagerness, and being lost to sight in the distance.

"They are all in haste to get the best seat; there is only one best seat, by their actions, and each one is determined to have it; that isn't the way they act in a religious meeting, is it, Dilly? There, the people all want to get as far from the front as possible."

"Do they?" asked Dilly, laughing. "I never saw people try to do that in church on Sundays."

"Oh! On Sundays they generally own their pews and go to them; but when I was a little fellow I had a Scotch nurse who took me to prayer meeting on Thursday evening as often as she got a chance; I used to rather like to go for the sake of being with Nurse Campbell, but the people acted the queerest, I thought! Slipping in as though they were half-ashamed of themselves for being there at all; taking the farthest possible seat from the minister; and no amount of coaxing on his part could induce them to come to the front."

"What made them act that way?"

"Couldn't say; it was a problem over which I studied in my young and innocent days, but I have never solved it. I haven't been to prayer meetings much lately; got caught once or twice by accident—and they always seemed to me the most doleful places in the world; people who frequent them seem to do it as a sort of penance. They are sorry when the bell rings, and look glad when the last 'amen' is said; that is my experience of prayer meetings. What is yours?"

"I haven't any," said Dilly. "Mother wasn't ever well enough to go, since I can remember; and I always stayed with her; then, after she went away, father would not leave me alone; but I have a feeling that my father went to prayer meeting because he liked to go."

"Did, eh? Well he was peculiar, I guess; I never saw any people who acted as though they liked to go. Nurse Campbell liked the fun of getting out, and having a pleasant walk, and shaking hands with a few of her mates, but she always looked pleased when the meeting was over. Here we are at the tabernacle."

And then they plunged down that flight of steps, and Dilly saw why the people in the distance had been so suddenly lost to sight. They had gone, as many as could, beyond the rows of seats which stretched tier on tier to the very top, and seated themselves in the long wide level space, also filled with pews; even the broad aisles were, on this morning, crowded with chairs which late comers took eagerly. Very little space left below; those who came after this must be content with seats in the circle.

"They could see just as well there, if they only thought so," said Hart; "but every one feels greedy to get the best place. There's a spot just the other side of that post; an excellent place for a view, but the people do not know it; let us make for those two seats."

"Then we will be greedy, too," answered Dilly in a soft and gleeful voice; she was having great fun.

"What is it they want to see?" she whispered as soon as they were settled in the two excellent seats which had somehow been overlooked.

"Pictures," whispered Hart. "A man makes pictures of birds, and bugs, and boys, and any and everything, right before your eyes, and talks about them."

"Finishes them now while we are looking at him! How can he? I thought it took a long time to make a picture."

"Depends upon the amount of skill a man has, I suppose; this one they say is a genius. I heard about him when I was North, last summer; I thought then, if ever I had a chance, I would go and hear him, or see him; and I haven't thought of it since, until this morning. I forgot what was going on until I saw the blackboard—that is what he works on—and that one with the tourist's cap on must be he."

Dilly had not the least idea what a tourist's cap might be, but she resolved to look hard at whoever should come to the platform, and learn for herself that, and many other things. It was all new ground to her. The level seats which stretched away in front and on either side of her, and back almost as far as her eye could reach, were largely filled with children. Very little bits of people occupied the extreme front, and those a little older were seated just behind them; after that, children of all ages had crowded in. Some of them had gray hairs.

"We are all children this morning," said a smiling gentleman with cane, and spectacles, and a white beard; he was seated just behind Dilly, and gave her an encouraging smile when she glanced around.

"Is it a children's meeting?" she whispered.

"I think it must be," Hart said, gazing about curiously, "a children's meeting all the grown people are determined to attend. Look at that old lady in the arm-chair; she must be nearly eighty! Now, Dilly, watch, and you will see what common chalk can do in some people's hands."