be sure, they dressed well and were suggestive in that, but they looked blank at some of her inquiries, and appeared to feel their days complete if, after the housework had been done and the battle fought with the hired girl, they were able to visit the shopping district and pore over fabrics, in case they could not buy them. Some were evidently looking forward to the day when they might be so fortunate as to possess one of the larger houses of the district a mile away, and figure among what they termed "society people." There were others who, in their satisfaction with this course of life, referred with a touch of self-righteousness to the dwellers on the River Drive as deserving reprobation on account of a lack of serious purpose. This criticism appealed to Selma, and consoled her in a measure for the half mortification with which she had begun to realize that she was not of so much account as she had expected; at least, that there were people not very far distant from her block who were different somehow from her neighbors, and who took part in social proceedings in which she and her husband were not invited to participate. Manifestly they were unworthy and un-American. It was a comfort to come to this conclusion, even though her immediate surroundings, including the society of those who had put the taunt into her thoughts, left her unsatisfied.
Some relief was provided at last by her church. Babcock was by birth an Episcopalian, though he had been lax in his interest during early manhood. This was one of the matters which he had expected marriage to correct, and he had taken up again, not merely with resignation but complacency, the custom of attending service regularly. Dr. White had been a controversial Methodist, but since his wife's death, and especially since the war, he had abstained from religious observances, and had argued himself somewhat far afield from the fold of orthodox belief. Consequently Selma, though she attended church at Westfield when her father's ailments did not require her presence at home, had been brought up to exercise her faculties freely on problems of faith and to feel herself a little more enlightened than the conventional worshipper. Still she was not averse to following her husband to the Rev. Henry Glynn's church. The experience was another revelation to her, for service at Westfield had been eminently severe and unadorned. Mr. Glynn was an Englishman; a short, stout, strenuous member of the Church of England with a broad accent and a predilection for ritual, but enthusiastic and earnest. He had been tempted to cross the ocean by the opportunities for preaching the gospel to the heathen, and he had fixed on Benham as a vineyard where he could labor to advantage. His advent had been a success. He had awakened interest by his fervor and by his methods. The pew taken by Babcock was one of the last remaining, and there was already talk of building a larger church to replace the chapel where he ministered. Choir boys, elaborate vestments, and genuflections, were novelties in the Protestant worship of Benham, and attracted the attention of many almost weary of plainer forms of worship, especially as these manifestations of color were effectively supplemented by evident sincerity of spirit on the part of their pastor. Nor were his energy and zeal confined to purely spiritual functions. The scope of his church work was practical and social. He had organized from the congregation societies of various sorts to relieve the poor; Bible classes and evening reunions which the members of the parish were urged to attend in order to become acquainted. Mr. Glynn's manner was both hearty and pompous. To him there was no Church in the world but the Church of England, and it was obvious that as one of the clergy of that Church he considered himself to be no mean man; but apart from this serious intellectual foible with respect to his own relative importance, he was a stimulating Christian and citizen within his lights. His active, crusading, and emotional temperament just suited the seething propensities of Benham.
His flock comprised a few of the residents of the River Drive district, among them the Flaggs, but was a fairly representative mixture of all grades of society, including the poorest. These last were specimens under spiritual duress rather than free worshippers, and it was a constant puzzle to the reverend gentleman why, in the matter of attendance, they, metaphorically speaking, sickened and died. It had never been so in England. "Bonnets!" responded one day Mrs. Hallett Taylor, who had become Mr. Glynn's leading ally in parish matters, and was noted for her executive ability. She was an engaging but clear-headed soul who went straight to the point.
"I do not fathom your meaning," said the pastor, a little loftily, for the suggestion sounded flippant.
"It hurts their feelings to go to a church where their clothes are shabby compared with those of the rest of the congregation."
"Yes, but in God's chapel, dear lady, all such distinctions should be forgotten."
"They can't forget, and I don't blame them much, poor things, do you? It's the free-born American spirit. There now, Mr. Glynn, you were asking me yesterday to suggest some one for junior warden. Why not Mr. Babcock? They're new comers and seem available people."
Mr. Glynn's distress at her first question was merged in the interest inspired by her second, for his glance had followed hers until it rested on the Babcocks, who had just entered the vestry to attend the social reunion. Selma's face wore its worried archangel aspect. She was on her good behavior and proudly on her guard against social impertinence. But she looked very pretty, and her compact, slight figure indicated a busy way.
"I will interrogate him," he answered. "I have observed them before, and—and I can't quite make out the wife. It is almost a spiritual face, and yet—"
"Just a little hard and keen," broke in Mrs. Taylor, upon his hesitation. "She is pretty, and she looks clever. I think we can get some work out of her."
Thereupon she sailed gracefully in the direction of Selma. Mrs. Taylor was from Maryland. Her husband, a physician, had come to Benham at the close of the war to build up a practice, and his wife had aided him by her energy and graciousness to make friends. Unlike some Southerners, she was not indolent, and yet she possessed all the ingratiating, spontaneous charm of well-bred women from that section of the country. Her tastes were æsthetic and ethical rather than intellectual, and her special interest at the moment was the welfare of the church. She thought it desirable that all the elements of which the congregation was composed should be represented on the committees, and Selma seemed to her the most obviously available person from the class to which the Babcocks belonged.
"I want you to help us," she said. "I think you have ideas. We need a woman with sense and ideas on our committee to build the new church."
Selma was not used to easy grace and sprightly spontaneity. It affected her at first much as the touch of man; but just as in that instance the experience was agreeable. Life was too serious a thing in her regard to lend itself casually to lightness, and yet she felt instinctively attracted by this lack of self-consciousness and self-restraint. Besides here was an opportunity such as she had been yearning for. She had met Mrs. Taylor before, and knew her to be the presiding genius of the congregation; and it was evident that Mrs. Taylor had discovered her value.
"Thank you," she said, gravely, but cordially. "That is what I should like. I wish to be of use. I shall be pleased to serve on the committee."
"It will be interesting, I think. I have never helped build anything before. Perhaps you have?"
"No," said Selma slowly. Her tone conveyed the impression that, though her abilities had never been put to that precise test, the employment seemed easily within her capacity.
"Ah! I am sure you will be suggestive" said Mrs. Taylor. "I am right anxious that it shall be a credit in an architectural way, you know."
Mr. Glynn, who had followed with more measured tread, now mingled his hearty bass voice in the conversation. His mental attitude was friendly, but inquisitorial; as seemed to him to befit one charged with the cure of souls. He proceeded to ask questions, beginning with inquiries conventional and domestic, but verging presently on points of faith. Babcock, to whom they were directly addressed, stood the ordeal well, revealing himself as flattered, contrite, and zealous to avail himself of the blessings of the church. He admitted that lately he had been lax in his spiritual duties.
"We
