"There was no use in compromising about these matters," he said. "Busy people can find something important to detain them every week of their lives if they once admit an exception. The only way is to set one's face like a flint and march ahead."
But he came to her with profuse apologies for this exception; Parker had planned, without knowing anything about the prayer-meeting; he had not been brought up to think of such things, and it was going to embarrass him very much if he declined. He wouldn't have had it happen in this way for a great deal, and he should take care to let Parker know in the future that Thursday evening belonged to his mother and to no one else. He himself arranged for her to have agreeable company to and from the church, and she had grace to be sweet and cheerfully acquiescent in all his plans. Nevertheless she owned, quite to herself, that she felt in a strange, new sense alone. She was more straitened in her praying that evening than she had been for months, almost for years. There was a miserable undertone question hovering about each petition: Could it be possible that she must teach herself to pray for Mamie Parker, not as a passing acquaintance but as one of her very own? and could she learn such a lesson? She had by no means settled it that such a catastrophe must come upon them, but she could not keep down her forebodings.
It was two days afterwards that Mrs. Burnham, having at last reached a decision, made another very careful move. It was discussed over the cosey breakfast which she and Erskine took together in her parlor.
"Would he like to have her ask Mr. Parker and his sister in to dinner on some evening soon? or would that indicate a greater degree of intimacy with the young man than he cared to live up to?"
There was a sudden stricture at her heart over the flash of pleasure on her son's face.
"Mommie, you are a jewel!" this was his first outburst. "Parker would be everlastingly obliged to you for such an attention. You see he knows very few people here of the sort that he would care to have his sister visit. Most of his friends are just college boys away from home, and Parker has ideas about his sister's associates. He is a real good fellow, Mommie; if he had had one-third of my opportunities, he would have made more of them, I believe, than I have."