It came over her that she had been a fool to attempt to fill the place of mother to these two modern young things. Their own ideas were fully made up about all questions that seemed vital to her. She had been a fossil in a back-country place all her life, and of course they felt she did not know. Well, of course she did not know much about modern society and its ways, save to dread it, and to doubt it, and to wish to keep them away from it. She was prejudiced, perhaps. Yes, she had been reared that way, and the world would call her narrow. Would Christ the Lord feel that way about it? Did He like to have His children dressing like abandoned women and making free with one another under the guise of polite social customs? Did He want His children to spend their Sabbaths in play, however innocent the play might be? She turned with a sigh away from the window. No, she could not see it any other way. It was the way of the world, and that was all there was to it. Leslie had made it plain when she said they had to do it or be left out. And wasn't that just what it meant to be a "peculiar people" unto the Lord, to be willing to give up doubtful things that harmed people for the sake of keeping pure and unspotted from the world? "If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you," came the familiar old words. Well, and what should she do now? It wouldn't do to rave and fuss about things. That never did any good. She couldn't say she wouldn't stay if they danced and went away over the Sabbath. Those were things in which she might advise, but had no authority. They were old enough to decide such matters for themselves. She could only use her influence, and trust the rest with the Lord. Yes, there was one thing she could do. She could pray!
So Julia Cloud gave her quiet orders to Cherry, and went up to her rose-and-gray room to kneel by the bed and pray, agonizing for her beloved children through the long hours of that long, long evening.
It was a quiet face that she lifted at last from her vigil, for it bore the brightness of a face-to-face communion with her Lord; and she rose and went about her preparations for the night. Then, just as she had taken down her hair and was brushing it in a silver cloud about her shoulders, she heard a car drive up. A moment more a key turned in the latch, and some one came in.