Текст книги "Sister Carrie"

Автор книги: Теодор Драйзер

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“Well, my dear,” he asked, “how did you come out?”

“Well enough,” she said, still somewhat reduced after Drouet.

“Now, tell me just what you did. Was it pleasant?”

Carrie related the incidents of the rehearsal, warming up as she proceeded.

“Well, that’s delightful,” said Hurstwood. “I’m so glad. I must get over there to see you. When is the next rehearsal?”

“Tuesday,” said Carrie, “but they don’t allow visitors.”

“I imagine I could get in,” said Hurstwood significantly.

She was completely restored and delighted by his consideration, but she made him promise not to come around.

“Now you must do your best to please me,” he said encouragingly. “Just remember that I want you to succeed. We will make the performance worth while. You do that now.”

“I’ll try,” said Carrie, brimming with affection and enthusiasm.

“That’s the girl,” said Hurstwood fondly. “Now, remember,” shaking an affectionate finger at her, “your best.”

“I will,” she answered, looking back.

The whole earth was brimming sunshine that morning. She tripped along, the clear sky pouring liquid blue into her soul. Oh, blessed are the children of endeavour in this, that they try and are hopeful. And blessed also are they who, knowing, smile and approve.

CHAPTER XVIII

JUST OVER THE BORDER:

A HAIL AND FAREWELL

BY THE EVENING OF the 16th the subtle hand of Hurstwood had made itself apparent. He had given the word among his friends—and they were many and influential—that here was something which they ought to attend, and, as a consequence, the sale of tickets by Mr. Quincel, acting for the lodge, had been large. Small four-line notes had appeared in all of the daily newspapers. These he had arranged for by the aid of one of his newspaper friends on the “Times,” Mr. Harry McGarren, the managing editor.

“Say, Harry,” Hurstwood said to him one evening, as the latter stood at the bar drinking before wending his belated way homeward, “you can help the boys out, I guess.”

“What is it?” said McGarren, pleased to be consulted by the opulent manager.

“The Custer Lodge is getting up a little entertainment for their own good, and they’d like a little newspaper notice. You know what I mean—a squib or two saying that it’s going to take place.”

“Certainly,” said McGarren, “I can fix that for you, George.”

At the same time Hurstwood kept himself wholly in the background. The members of Custer Lodge could scarcely understand why their little affair was taking so well. Mr. Harry Quincel was looked upon as quite a star for this sort of work.

By the time the 16th had arrived Hurstwood’s friends had rallied like Romans to a senator’s call. A well-dressed, good-natured, flatteringly-inclined audience was assured from the moment he thought of assisting Carrie.

That little student had mastered her part to her own satisfaction, much as she trembled for her fate when she should once face the gathered throng, behind the glare of the footlights. She tried to console herself with the thought that a score of other persons, men and women, were equally tremulous concerning the outcome of their efforts, but she could not disassociate the general danger from her own individual liability. She feared that she would forget her lines, that she might be unable to master the feeling which she now felt concerning her own movements in the play. At times she wished that she had never gone into the affair; at others, she trembled lest she should be paralysed with fear and stand white and gasping, not knowing what to say and spoiling the entire performance.

In the matter of the company, Mr. Bamberger had disappeared. That hopeless example had fallen under the lance of the director’s criticism. Mrs. Morgan was still present, but envious and determined, if for nothing more than spite, to do as well as Carrie at least. A loafing professional had been called in to assume the role of Ray, and, while he was a poor stick of his kind, he was not troubled by any of those qualms which attack the spirit of those who have never faced an audience. He swashed about (cautioned though he was to maintain silence concerning his past theatrical relationships) in such a self-confident manner that he was like to convince every one of his identity by mere matter of circumstantial evidence.

“It is so easy,” he said to Mrs. Morgan, in the usual affected stage voice. “An audience would be the last thing to trouble me. It’s the spirit of the part, you know, that is difficult.”

Carrie disliked his appearance, but she was too much the actress not to swallow his qualities with complaisance, seeing that she must suffer his fictitious love for the evening.

At six she was ready to go. Theatrical paraphernalia had been provided over and above her care. She had practised her make-up in the morning, had rehearsed and arranged her material for the evening by one o’clock, and had gone home to have a final look at her part, waiting for the evening to come.

On this occasion the lodge sent a carriage. Drouet rode with her as far as the door, and then went about the neighbouring stores, looking for some good cigars. The little actress marched nervously into her dressing-room and began that painfully anticipated matter of make-up which was to transform her, a simple maiden, to Laura, The Belle of Society.

The flare of the gas-jets, the open trunks, suggestive of travel and display, the scattered contents of the make-up box—rouge, pearl powder, whiting, burnt cork, India ink, pencils for the eyelids, wigs, scissors, looking-glasses, drapery—in short, all the nameless paraphernalia of disguise, have a remarkable atmosphere of their own. Since her arrival in the city many things had influenced her, but always in a far-removed manner. This new atmosphere was more friendly. It was wholly unlike the great brilliant mansions which waved her coldly away, permitting her only awe and distant wonder. This took her by the hand kindly, as one who says, “My dear, come in.” It opened for her as if for its own. She had wondered at the greatness of the names upon the bill-boards, the marvel of the long notices in the papers, the beauty of the dresses upon the stage, the atmosphere of carriages, flowers, refinement. Here was no illusion. Here was an open door to see all of that. She had come upon it as one who stumbles upon a secret passage, and, behold, she was in the chamber of diamonds and delight!

As she dressed with a flutter, in her little stage room, hearing the voices outside, seeing Mr. Quincel hurrying here and there, noting Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Hoagland at their nervous work of preparation, seeing all the twenty members of the cast moving about and worrying over what the result would be, she could not help thinking what a delight this would be if it would endure; how perfect a state, if she could only do well now, and then some time get a place as a real actress. The thought had taken a mighty hold upon her. It hummed in her ears as the melody of an old song.

Outside in the little lobby another scene was being enacted. Without the interest of Hurstwood, the little hall would probably have been comfortably filled, for the members of the lodge were moderately interested in its welfare. Hurstwood’s word, however, had gone the rounds. It was to be a full-dress affair. The four boxes had been taken. Dr. Norman McNeill Hale and his wife were to occupy one. This was quite a card. C. R. Walker, dry-goods merchant and possessor of at least two hundred thousand dollars, had taken another; a well-known coal merchant had been induced to take the third, and Hurstwood and his friends the fourth. Among the latter was Drouet. The people who were now pouring here were not celebrities, nor even local notabilities, in a general sense. They were the lights of a certain circle—the circle of small fortunes and secret order distinctions. These gentlemen Elks knew the standing of one another. They had regard for the ability which could amass a small fortune, own a nice home, keep a barouche or carriage, perhaps, wear fine clothes, and maintain a good mercantile position.

Naturally, Hurstwood, who was a little above the order of mind which accepted this standard as perfect, who had shrewdness and much assumption of dignity, who held an imposing and authoritative position, and commanded friendship by intuitive tact in handling people, was quite a figure. He was more generally known than most others in the same circle, and was looked upon as some one whose reserve covered a mine of influence and solid financial prosperity.

To-night he was in his element. He came with several friends directly from Rector’s in a carriage. In the lobby he met Drouet, who was just returning from a trip for more cigars. All five now joined in an animated conversation concerning the company present and the general drift of lodge affairs.

“Who’s here?” said Hurstwood, passing into the theatre proper, where the lights were turned up and a company of gentlemen were laughing and talking in the open space back of the seats.

“Why, how do you do, Mr. Hurstwood?” came from the first individual recognised.

“Glad to see you,” said the latter, grasping his hand lightly.

“Looks quite an affair, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, indeed,” said the manager.

“Custer seems to have the backing of its members,” observed the friend.

“So it should,” said the knowing manager. “I’m glad to see it.”

“Well, George,” said another rotund citizen, whose avoirdupois made necessary an almost alarming display of starched shirt bosom, “how goes it with you?”

“Excellent,” said the manager.

“What brings you over here? You’re not a member of Custer.”

“Good-nature,” returned the manager. “Like to see the boys, you know.”

“Wife here?”

“She couldn’t come to-night. She’s not well.”

“Sorry to hear it—nothing serious, I hope.”

“No, just feeling a little ill.”

“I remember Mrs. Hurstwood when she was travelling once with you over to St. Joe—” and here the newcomer launched off in a trivial recollection, which was terminated by the arrival of more friends.

“Why, George, how are you?” said another genial West Side politician and lodge member. “My, but I’m glad to see you again; how are things, anyhow?”

“Very well; I see you got that nomination for alderman.”

“Yes, we whipped them out over there without much trouble.”

“What do you suppose Hennessy will do now?”

“Oh, he’ll go back to his brick business. He has a brick-yard, you know.”

“I didn’t know that,” said the manager. “Felt pretty sore, I suppose, over his defeat.”

“Perhaps,” said the other, winking shrewdly.

Some of the more favoured of his friends whom he had invited began to roll up in carriages now. They came shuffling in with a great show of finery and much evident feeling of content and importance.

“Here we are,” said Hurstwood, turning to one from a group with whom he was talking.

“That’s right,” returned the newcomer, a gentleman of about forty-five.

“And say,” he whispered, jovially, pulling Hurstwood over by the shoulder so that he might whisper in his ear, “if this isn’t a good show, I’ll punch your head.”

“You ought to pay for seeing your old friends. Bother the show!”

To another who inquired, “Is it something really good?” the manager replied:

“I don’t know. I don’t suppose so.” Then, lifting his hand graciously, “For the lodge.”

“Lots of boys out, eh?”

“Yes, look up Shanahan. He was just asking for you a moment ago.”

It was thus that the little theatre resounded to a babble of successful voices, the creak of fine clothes, the commonplace of good-nature, and all largely because of this man’s bidding. Look at him any time within the half hour before the curtain was up, he was a member of an eminent group—a rounded company of five or more whose stout figures, large white bosoms, and shining pins bespoke the character of their success. The gentlemen who brought their wives called him out to shake hands. Seats clicked, ushers bowed while he looked blandly on. He was evidently a light among them, reflecting in his personality the ambitions of those who greeted him. He was acknowledged, fawned upon, in a way lionised. Through it all one could see the standing of the man. It was greatness in a way, small as it was.

CHAPTER XIX

AN HOUR IN ELFLAND:

A CLAMOUR HALF HEARD

AT LAST THE CURTAIN was ready to go up. All the details of the make-up had been completed, and the company settled down as the leader of the small, hired orchestra tapped significantly upon his music rack with his baton and began the soft curtain-raising strain. Hurstwood ceased talking, and went with Drouet and his friend Sagar Morrison around to the box.

“Now, we’ll see how the little girl does,” he said to Drouet, in a tone which no one else could hear.

On the stage, six of the characters had already appeared in the opening parlour scene. Drouet and Hurstwood saw at a glance that Carrie was not among them, and went on talking in a whisper. Mrs. Morgan, Mrs. Hoagland, and the actor who had taken Bamberger’s part were representing the principal roles in this scene. The professional, whose name was Patton, had little to recommend him outside of his assurance, but this at the present moment was most palpably needed. Mrs. Morgan, as Pearl, was stiff with fright. Mrs. Hoagland was husky in the throat. The whole company was so weak-kneed that the lines were merely spoken, and nothing more. It took all the hope and uncritical good-nature of the audience to keep from manifesting pity by that unrest which is the agony of failure.

Hurstwood was perfectly indifferent. He took it for granted that it would be worthless. All he cared for was to have it endurable enough to allow for pretension and congratulation afterward.

After the first rush of fright, however, the players got over the danger of collapse. They rambled weakly forward, losing nearly all the expression which was intended, and making the thing dull in the extreme, when Carrie came in.

One glance at her, and both Hurstwood and Drouet saw plainly that she also was weak-kneed. She came faintly across the stage, saying:

“And you, sir; we have been looking for you since eight o’clock,” but with so little colour and in such a feeble voice that it was positively painful.

“She’s frightened,” whispered Drouet to Hurstwood.

The manager made no answer.

She had a line presently which was supposed to be funny.

“Well, that’s as much as to say that I’m a sort of life pill.”

It came out so flat, however, that it was a deathly thing. Drouet fidgeted. Hurstwood moved his toe the least bit.

There was another place in which Laura was to rise and, with a sense of impending disaster, say, sadly:

“I wish you hadn’t said that, Pearl. You know the old proverb, ‘Call a maid by a married name.’ ”

The lack of feeling in the thing was ridiculous. Carrie did not get it at all. She seemed to be talking in her sleep. It looked as if she were certain to be a wretched failure. She was more hopeless than Mrs. Morgan, who had recovered somewhat, and was now saying her lines clearly at least. Drouet looked away from the stage at the audience. The latter held out silently, hoping for a general change, of course. Hurstwood fixed his eye on Carrie, as if to hypnotise her into doing better. He was pouring determination of his own in her direction. He felt sorry for her.

In a few more minutes it fell to her to read the letter sent in by the strange villain. The audience had been slightly diverted by a conversation between the professional actor and a character called Snorky, impersonated by a short little American, who really developed some humour as a half-crazed, one-armed soldier, turned messenger for a living. He bawled his lines out with such defiance that, while they really did not partake of the humour intended, they were funny. Now he was off, however, and it was back to pathos, with Carrie as the chief figure. She did not recover. She wandered through the whole scene between herself and the intruding villain, straining the patience of the audience, and finally exiting, much to their relief.

“She’s too nervous,” said Drouet, feeling in the mildness of the remark that he was lying for once.

“Better go back and say a word to her.”

Drouet was glad to do anything for relief. He fairly hustled around to the side entrance, and was let in by the friendly door-keeper. Carrie was standing in the wings, weakly waiting her next cue, all the snap and nerve gone out of her.

“Say, Cad,” he said, looking at her, “you mustn’t be nervous. Wake up. Those guys out there don’t amount to anything. What are you afraid of?”

“I don’t know,” said Carrie. “I just don’t seem to be able to do it.”

She was grateful for the drummer’s presence, though. She had found the company so nervous that her own strength had gone.

“Come on,” said Drouet. “Brace up. What are you afraid of? Go on out there now, and do the trick. What do you care?”

Carrie revived a little under the drummer’s electrical, nervous condition.

“Did I do so very bad?”

“Not a bit. All you need is a little more ginger. Do it as you showed me. Get that toss of your head you had the other night.”

Carrie remembered her triumph in the room. She tried to think she could do it.

“What’s next?” he said, looking at her part, which she had been studying.

“Why, the scene between Ray and me when I refuse him.”

“Well, now you do that lively,” said the drummer. “Put in snap, that’s the thing. Act as if you didn’t care.”

“Your turn next, Miss Madenda,” said the prompter.

“Oh, dear,” said Carrie.

“Well, you’re a chump for being afraid,” said Drouet. “Come on now, brace up. I’ll watch you from right here.”

“Will you?” said Carrie.

“Yes, now go on. Don’t be afraid.”

The prompter signalled her.

She started out, weak as ever but suddenly her nerve partially returned. She thought of Drouet looking.

“Ray,” she said, gently, using a tone of voice much more calm than when she had last appeared. It was the scene which had pleased the director at the rehearsal.

“She’s easier,” thought Hurstwood to himself.

She did not do the part as she had at rehearsal, but she was better. The audience was at least not irritated. The improvement of the work of the entire company took away direct observation from her. They were making very fair progress, and now it looked as if the play would be passable, in the less trying parts at least.

Carrie came off warm and nervous.

“Well,” she said, looking at him, “was it any better?”

“Well, I should say so. That’s the way. Put life into it. You did that about a thousand per cent. better than you did the other scene. Now go on and fire up. You can do it. Knock ’em.”

“Was it really better?”

“Better, I should say so. What comes next?”

“That ballroom scene.”

“Well, you can do that all right,” he said.

“I don’t know,” answered Carrie.

“Why, woman,” he exclaimed, “you did it for me! Now you go out there and do it. It’ll be fun for you. Just do as you did in the room. If you’ll reel it off that way, I’ll bet you make a hit. Now, what’ll you bet? You do it.”

The drummer usually allowed his ardent good-nature to get the better of his speech. He really did think that Carrie had acted this particular scene very well, and he wanted her to repeat it in public. His enthusiasm was due to the mere spirit of the occasion.

When the time came, he buoyed Carrie up most effectually. He began to make her feel as if she had done very well. The old melancholy of desire began to come back as he talked at her, and by the time the situation rolled around she was running high in feeling.

“I think I can do this.”

“Sure you can. Now you go ahead and see.”

On the stage, Mrs. Van Dam was making her cruel insinuation against Laura.

Carrie listened, and caught the infection of something—she did not know what. Her nostrils sniffed thinly.

“It means,” the professional actor began, speaking as Ray, “that society is a terrible avenger of insult. Have you ever heard of the Siberian wolves? When one of the pack falls through weakness, the others devour him. It is not an elegant comparison, but there is something wolfish in society. Laura has mocked it with a pretence, and society, which is made up of pretence, will bitterly resent the mockery.”

At the sound of her stage name Carrie started. She began to feel the bitterness of the situation. The feelings of the outcast descended upon her. She hung at the wing’s edge, wrapt in her own mounting thoughts. She hardly heard anything more, save her own rumbling blood.

“Come, girls,” said Mrs. Van Dam, solemnly, “let us look after our things. They are no longer safe when such an accomplished thief enters.”

“Cue,” said the prompter, close to her side, but she did not hear. Already she was moving forward with a steady grace, born of inspiration. She dawned upon the audience, handsome and proud, shifting, with the necessity of the situation, to a cold, white, helpless object, as the social pack moved away from her scornfully.

Hurstwood blinked his eyes and caught the infection. The radiating waves of feeling and sincerity were already breaking against the farthest walls of the chamber. The magic of passion, which will yet dissolve the world, was here at work.

There was a drawing, too, of attention, a riveting of feeling, heretofore wandering.

“Ray! Ray! Why do you not come back to her?” was the cry of Pearl.

Every eye was fixed on Carrie, still proud and scornful. They moved as she moved. Their eyes were with her eyes.

Mrs. Morgan, as Pearl, approached her.

“Let us go home,” she said.

“No,” answered Carrie, her voice assuming for the first time a penetrating quality which it had never known. “Stay with him!”

She pointed an almost accusing hand toward her lover. Then, with a pathos which struck home because of its utter simplicity, “He shall not suffer long.”

Hurstwood realised that he was seeing something extraordinarily good. It was heightened for him by the applause of the audience as the curtain descended and the fact that it was Carrie. He thought now that she was beautiful. She had done something which was above his sphere. He felt a keen delight in realising that she was his.

“Fine,” he said, and then, seized by a sudden impulse, arose and went about to the stage door.

When he came in upon Carrie she was still with Drouet. His feelings for her were most exuberant. He was almost swept away by the strength and feeling she exhibited. His desire was to pour forth his praise with the unbounded feelings of a lover, but here was Drouet, whose affection was also rapidly reviving. The latter was more fascinated, if anything, than Hurstwood. At least, in the nature of things, it took a more ruddy form.

“Well, well,” said Drouet, “you did out of sight. That was simply great. I knew you could do it. Oh, but you’re a little daisy!”

Carrie’s eyes flamed with the light of achievement.

“Did I do all right?”

“Did you? Well, I guess. Didn’t you hear the applause?”

There was some faint sound of clapping yet.

“I thought I got it something like—I felt it.”

Just then Hurstwood came in. Instinctively he felt the change in Drouet. He saw that the drummer was near to Carrie, and jealousy leaped alight in his bosom. In a flash of thought, he reproached himself for having sent him back. Also, he hated him as an intruder. He could scarcely pull himself down to the level where he would have to congratulate Carrie as a friend. Nevertheless, the man mastered himself, and it was a triumph. He almost jerked the old subtle light to his eyes.

“I thought,” he said, looking at Carrie, “I would come around and tell you how well you did, Mrs. Drouet. It was delightful.”

Carrie took the cue, and replied:

“Oh, thank you.”

“I was just telling her,” put in Drouet, now delighted with his possession, “that I thought she did fine.”

“Indeed you did,” said Hurstwood, turning upon Carrie eyes in which she read more than the words.

Carrie laughed luxuriantly.

“If you do as well in the rest of the play, you will make us all think you are a born actress.”

Carrie smiled again. She felt the acuteness of Hurstwood’s position, and wished deeply that she could be alone with him, but she did not understand the change in Drouet. Hurstwood found that he could not talk, repressed as he was, and grudging Drouet every moment of his presence, he bowed himself out with the elegance of a Faust. Outside he set his teeth with envy.

“Damn it!” he said, “is he always going to be in the way?” He was moody when he got back to the box, and could not talk for thinking of his wretched situation.

As the curtain for the next act arose, Drouet came back. He was very much enlivened in temper and inclined to whisper, but Hurstwood pretended interest. He fixed his eyes on the stage, although Carrie was not there, a short bit of melodramatic comedy preceding her entrance. He did not see what was going on, however. He was thinking his own thoughts, and they were wretched.

The progress of the play did not improve matters for him. Carrie, from now on, was easily the centre of interest. The audience, which had been inclined to feel that nothing could be good after the first gloomy impression, now went to the other extreme and saw power where it was not. The general feeling reacted on Carrie. She presented her part with some felicity, though nothing like the intensity which had aroused the feeling at the end of the long first act.

Both Hurstwood and Drouet viewed her pretty figure with rising feelings. The fact that such ability should reveal itself in her, that they should see it set forth under such effective circumstances, framed almost in massy gold and shone upon by the appropriate lights of sentiment and personality, heightened her charm for them. She was more than the old Carrie to Drouet. He longed to be at home with her until he could tell her. He awaited impatiently the end, when they should go home alone.

Hurstwood, on the contrary, saw in the strength of her new attractiveness his miserable predicament. He could have cursed the man beside him. By the Lord, he could not even applaud feelingly as he would. For once he must simulate when it left a taste in his mouth.

It was in the last act that Carrie’s fascination for her lovers assumed its most effective character.

Hurstwood listened to its progress, wondering when Carrie would come on. He had not long to wait. The author had used the artifice of sending all the merry company for a drive, and now Carrie came in alone. It was the first time that Hurstwood had had a chance to see her facing the audience quite alone, for nowhere else had she been without a foil of some sort. He suddenly felt, as she entered, that her old strength—the power that had grasped him at the end of the first act—had come back. She seemed to be gaining feeling, now that the play was drawing to a close and the opportunity for great action was passing.

“Poor Pearl,” she said, speaking with natural pathos. “It is a sad thing to want for happiness, but it is a terrible thing to see another groping about blindly for it, when it is almost within the grasp.”

She was gazing now sadly out upon the open sea, her arm resting listlessly upon the polished door-post.

Hurstwood began to feel a deep sympathy for her and for himself. He could almost feel that she was talking to him. He was, by a combination of feelings and entanglements, almost deluded by that quality of voice and manner which, like a pathetic strain of music, seems ever a personal and intimate thing. Pathos has this quality, that it seems ever addressed to one alone.

“And yet, she can be very happy with him,” went on the little actress. “Her sunny temper, her joyous face will brighten any home.”

She turned slowly toward the audience without seeing. There was so much simplicity in her movements that she seemed wholly alone. Then she found a seat by a table, and turned over some books, devoting a thought to them.

“With no longings for what I may not have,” she breathed in conclusion—and it was almost a sigh—“my existence hidden from all save two in the wide world, and making my joy out of the joy of that innocent girl who will soon be his wife.”

Hurstwood was sorry when a character, known as Peach Blossom, interrupted her. He stirred irritably, for he wished her to go on. He was charmed by the pale face, the lissome figure, draped in pearl grey, with a coiled string of pearls at the throat. Carrie had the air of one who was weary and in need of protection, and, under the fascinating make-believe of the moment, he rose in feeling until he was ready in spirit to go to her and ease her out of her misery by adding to his own delight.

In a moment Carrie was alone again, and was saying, with animation:

“I must return to the city, no matter what dangers may lurk here. I must go, secretly if I can; openly, if I must.”

There was a sound of horses’ hoofs outside, and then Ray’s voice saying:

“No, I shall not ride again. Put him up.”

He entered, and then began a scene which had as much to do with the creation of the tragedy of affection in Hurstwood as anything in his peculiar and involved career. For Carrie had resolved to make something of this scene, and, now that the cue had come, it began to take a feeling hold upon her. Both Hurstwood and Drouet noted the rising sentiment as she proceeded.

“I thought you had gone with Pearl,” she said to her lover.

“I did go part of the way, but I left the party a mile down the road.”

“You and Pearl had no disagreement?”

“No—yes; that is, we always have. Our social barometers always stand at ‘cloudy’ and ‘overcast.’ ”

“And whose fault is that?” she said, easily.

“Not mine,” he answered, pettishly. “I know I do all I can—I say all I can—but she—”

This was rather awkwardly put by Patton, but Carrie redeemed it with a grace which was inspiring.

“But she is your wife,” she said, fixing her whole attention upon the stilled actor, and softening the quality of her voice until it was again low and musical. “Ray, my friend, courtship is the text from which the whole sermon of married life takes its theme. Do not let yours be discontented and unhappy.”

She put her two little hands together and pressed them appealingly.