CHAPTER II.

"OH, I'll do it!" said Daisy, with a happy little laugh, her eyes shining, "I'm ready to do anything. I'll go down on Madison Square and snowball with him if he says so."

"I told Phil you would do it, and it isn't such a very dreadful thing to do, Daisy Morris. I know girls, plenty of them, who would jump at the chance.

"He wants you to go to Dorrance Hall with him this evening. It will be just lovely! I promised Harry I would go, and I wanted you along all the time."

The smile and the brightness faded together, and the shadow returned. Daisy's voice was low, almost tremulous. Her disappointment was great.

"Blanche dear, I don't go to the theatre, you know."'

"I know you don't, and no more do I—at least, not often; but this is a special occasion; everybody goes. They say the characters are perfectly wonderful! It isn't like these miserable travelling troupes generally. Everything is first-class, and they say the principal actress is a lovely woman. Besides, why, Daisy, I'm sure you will not hesitate. Think of Phil's promise. You said you would do anything."

The tone was reproachful, and Daisy felt it.

"I meant anything that is right," she made answer, speaking low.

"Well, of course, I would not ask you to do anything wrong; at least, mamma would not. I think you may trust her, if you cannot me. I tell you this is very different from an ordinary theatre; everybody goes. The same company was here last winter, and you ought to have seen the crowded houses! The very best people in the city. Why, Mrs. Schuyler Van Vorst went three nights in succession, and so did her husband, and he is an officer in our church."

"Blanche, did Mr. Easton go?"

"Mr. Easton! What an idea! Of course not! Public opinion doesn't exactly approve of ministers going to such places, though I am sure I don't see why; and I think it is mean, too. If I were a minister, I would not stand it. I think he has as good a right to go as anybody else."

"So do I," declared Daisy significantly.

But Blanche made haste with her arguments:

"But I don't care, Daisy, whether you ever go to a theatre again in your life—you needn't if you don't want to—if you will only go to-night. Think how much is at stake.

"We have been coaxing Phil for so long, and mother is almost discouraged. You said yourself last Sunday that you had given up all hope of his going to Sabbath-school; and here the matter is in your own hands. You can't think how delighted mamma is! She says she knows Mr. Easton will fascinate him right away."

"How came Phil to make such a condition as that? He has asked me before to go to a theatre, and he knew just what I thought."

"Oh, well; but you see, he feels like everybody else, that such a theatre as this is an exception. He says it is the very fact that you have never been, which makes him want to take you. He wants to see what the effect of the scenery, and the costumes, and everything, would be on one who sees it all for the first time. Then he says you have great talent in the way of personating people in dialogue, and he wants to see how it will affect you to hear it done in its perfection. He said it would be as good as a play to watch your face, and he added some very complimentary things about your eyes and cheeks, which you will not mind since you are his cousin. Oh, Daisy Morris, I know you will go! You would never be so cruel as to disappoint us. Mamma began to plan at once about your dress. She hopes you will wear that wine-colored silk, with plenty of white about it. That dress ought to be trimmed with ermine for such occasions, Daisy. Oh, dear! mamma's calling me."

Daisy was not sorry for this. Her brain was in a whirl. She needed to be alone.

Ermine trimming suggested the handsome face that had been raised to hers in petition to crown her hair with ermine. He knew she looked pretty in red and white. She knew it herself. Her wine-colored dress was lovely.

But she put it firmly from her thoughts. Here was a question to be decided, with which it ought to have nothing to do.

Seventeen years spent in a city, and she had never attended a theatre. It was by no means for lack of opportunity. It was because of what some people called the narrowness of her environments.

It was at first because mother and father never went, and did not approve. It was because, afterward, she adopted their views and feelings, and did not desire to go.

Many had been her invitations, but here came her first great temptation. Not for herself, but for this young cousin whom she admired, whom she thought was in danger; for his mother, who was troubled, and who looked to her for help. Ought she to yield her scruples on this occasion? She need not change her view; she need never go again. She could tell Phil frankly that she was going in order to secure the fulfillment of his promise, and for no other reason.

While the question was still in chaos, came her Aunt Mattie, with radiant face.

[Illustration: DAISY CANNOT DECIDE IN FAVOR OF THE THEATRE.]

"Our little girl has caught him in her snare," she said, kissing Daisy tenderly. "The naughty boy declared to me only two months ago that he could not think of any inducement strong enough to make him submit to the boredom of an hour in Sunday-school; and here, for the sake of witnessing the innocent delight of his pretty cousin over new sights and sounds, he is willing to pledge himself. You must look your very prettiest to-night, my dear."

"But, Aunt Mattie, you know what mamma and papa think about these things; and how I have been brought up to feel."

Whereupon her Aunt Mattie kissed her again. "Yes, dear child, I know. Your mother and I had the same bringing up, and we thought very much alike; and your uncle was fully in sympathy with such views; but he died before his children became of an age to modify them in the least; and your father and mother have been blessed with one dear child who imbibed their views so early that they have had no need to make sacrifices on her account; but there is a great difference in children.

"Neither Blanche nor Phil thought as I do about these things, though I brought them up. And, indeed, my views, as I said, have been somewhat modified. I do not approve of the indiscriminate theatre any more than I ever did, nor of frequent attendance. But occasionally, when there is a strictly moral play, presented by artists of acknowledged worth, I have found it necessary to let my children go; and I have, once or twice, yielded to Phil's coaxing, and gone myself."

"Aunt Mattie, it is Saturday evening."

"I know, my dear, and that part I regret. I do not, by any means, consider it the best preparation for the Sabbath; but the occasion, you know, is exceptional. It is this evening, or not at all, for this play; and I thought you would not mind making your little sacrifice for Phil's sake, when there may be so much at stake."

After that, Daisy was glad at the coming of callers who took her aunt to the parlor, and left her alone. She must think. What was her duty? What would mamma and papa say? It was certainly an exceptional case; she had never heard the line of argument which would have helped her to answer her aunt and cousin. She, too, believed that Mr. Easton's influence over her handsome and brilliant young cousin would be invaluable, and she knew only too well how much he needed influencing. Ought she not to help, when the way was plainly opened to her? This was an exceptional play; she knew enough about the theatre to be sure of it. She did not fear hearing or seeing what would cause her to blush.

Her pretty new dress was all ready to wear to some place demanding a brilliant costume. Her aunt would be bitterly disappointed if she failed her. Perhaps, just for this once, she ought to go.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, she came to this decision; but she opened the little box of delicate laces, and let herself think: "If I should go, I wonder if this, or this, would look the prettiest?" She opened her glove-box, and wondered whether she ought to get new kids.

Oh, there was her darling little hand-painted bouquet-holder. Phil ought to get her some lovely flowers to wear in it to-night. She wondered if he would think of it.

She reached down into the box for the pretty toy, and her hand touched a little book in a plain gray paper cover. What was this? Oh, she remembered; papa had brought it home on the evening before her departure, and had said: "There is something for you to study at your leisure, daughter. I don't know that you need it; but it is well for every Christian to be prepared to give a reason for his opinions."

She had thanked him, and kissed him, and dropped the book into the box she was packing, and had not thought of it since. There had been no occasion to go to the bottom of this particular box before.

Now she drew it out, and felt startled and flushed over the title: "Plain Talks About the Theatre." Could this be mere chance?

She hesitated but a moment, then closed the drawer and sat resolutely down with the little gray book. Certainly, if ever she needed any plain talk about the theatre, it was now. There was much to read; much that was new and startling to this young girl.

The statements made there, coming from the honored minister whose name she well knew, were such as to make the glow on her cheek something to notice and remember. Still, they all had to do with the regular drama, and not those occasional and exceptional plays such as were being performed by a rare company in this little city. Could there not be such things as exceptions, which even a Christian might be justified in enjoying?

Wait; what was this? She bent her brown head lower over the page, and read the keen, clear-cut sentences: "What if it be also true that this dark programme of the theatre is padded here and there with the so-called standard drama, to win the countenance and patronage of the most respectable and decent! I do not need to be told that to some extent it wins them. But neither do you need to be told, moral and Christian men and women, of decent and cleanly homes, thus drawn to see an exceptional play of high and chaste form and tone, that you are quoted and paraded as friends and supporters of the establishment—an establishment, three fourths or nine tenths of whose influence is pernicious and poisonous. Your patronage goes to swell the receipts of, and to give countenance to, the house whose common and most characteristic features are an offense to purity, to religion and to God."

The gray book dropped from her hands and slid to the floor. The young girl put both hands up to her flushed forehead, and pushed back the masses of hair. Then she spoke four words, fraught with intense and far-reaching meaning, "I want to pray," and dropped upon her knees.