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. CHAPTER III. DURING the afternoon, the handsome house in Lincoln Place was filled with uncomfortable and disappointed people. Daisy, the bright and generally-yielding cousin, was quiet and gentle, but firm as a rock in her decision to attend no theatre, either on that evening or any other. She had tried to present her arguments to Aunt Mattie and to Blanche, but neither mother nor daughter was in the mood to be reached by argument. The former had silenced her young guest by coldly referring to the tendency of the times, which led young people to fancy themselves wiser than their elders, even in matters of morals and religion, and the latter had only that unanswerable reply, 'Oh, fiddlesticks!' to make to any form of argument. Matters had not improved by the six o'clock dinner hour. Daisy watched for and waylaid Phil in the hall, and dashed eagerly into her subject without introduction: "Oh, Phil, I am sorry; but I can't do what you want, because I don't think it is right. I don't approve of any sort of theatre, and I cannot, of course, attend one; yet you know I would do anything to please you that I could." But Phil had been cold, too, and had replied with dignity that he was sorry he was supposed to desire to take her to improper places; that she must, at least, give him the credit of not intending anything wrong. And to her earnest attempts at explanation, had finally answered in his usual tone of gayety that it was all right; of course, he did not want to take her where she did not want to go, and that he had expected no other answer to his invitation, which was what had made him so willing to give the promise that Blanche had been ridiculous enough to claim.