"Oh yes; she's an old girl-friend of mine."
"Then you know how enormously clever she is. She can do anything. We want
her to take an active part--the part of the Nurse. She's delightfully
funny. But you know her peculiar temperament--how she hates initiative of
all kinds; and we want somebody to bring Mr. Wilmington round. If we could
get them committed to the scheme, and a man like Mr. Putney--he'd make
a capital Mercutio--it would go like wildfire. We want to interest the
churches, too. The object is so worthy, and the theatricals will be so
entirely unobjectionable in every respect. We have the Unitarians and
Universalists, of course. The Baptists and Methodists will be hard to
manage; but the Orthodox are of so many different shades; and I understand
the new minister, Mr. Peck, is very liberal. He was here in your house, I
believe."
"Yes; but I never saw him," said Annie. "He boarded with the farmer. I'm a
Unitarian myself."
"Of course. It would be a great point gained if we could interest him.
Every care will be taken to have the affair unobjectionable. You see, the
design is to let everybody come to the theatricals, and only those remain
to the supper and dance whom we invite. That will keep out the socially
objectionable element--the shoe-shop hands and the straw-shop girls."
"Oh," said Annie. "But isn't the--the Social Union for just that class?"
"Yes, it's _expressly_ for them, and we intend to organise a system of
entertainments--lectures, concerts, readings--for the winter, and keep them
interested the whole year round in it. The object is to show them that the
best people in the community have their interests at heart, and wish to get
on common ground with them."
"Yes," said Annie, "the object is certainly very good."
Mr. Brandreth rose again, and put out his hand. "Then you will help us?"
"Oh, I don't know about that yet."
"At least you won't hinder us?"
"Certainly not."
"Then I consider you in a very hopeful condition, Miss Kilburn, and I feel
that I can safely leave you to Mrs. Munger. She is coming to see you as
soon as she gets back."
Annie found herself sadder when he was gone, and she threw herself upon the
old feather-cushioned lounge to enjoy a reverie in keeping with the dreary
storm outside. Was it for this that she had left Rome? She had felt, as
every American of conscience feels abroad, the drawings of a duty, obscure
and indefinable, toward her country, the duty to come home and do something
for it, be something in it. This is the impulse of no common patriotism; it
is perhaps a sense of the opportunity which America supremely affords for
the race to help itself, and for each member of it to help all the rest.