Still, after taking all these things into consideration, both the girls and their leader were amazed, when at last the hour arrived, to discover that every available inch of room in the stuffy little church was taken.
"For once in its life it is full!" announced Anna Graves, peeping out, and then dodging hastily back. "Girls, it is full to actual suffocation, I should think; and they have come to hear us sing. Think of it!"
Well, whether those girls astonished themselves or not, they certainly did their fathers and mothers. Indeed, I am not sure that their young teacher did not feel an emotion of surprise over the fact that they acquitted themselves so well. Their voices, when not strained in attempting music too difficult for them, had been found capable of much more cultivation than she had at first supposed, and she had done her best for them, without realizing until now how much that "best" was accomplishing. It was really such a success, and, withal, such a surprise, that some of the time it was hard to keep back the happy tears. It is true there was one element in the entertainment which the teacher did not give its proper amount of credit. The fact is, she had so long been accustomed to her own voice as to have forgotten that to strangers it was wonderful. I suppose that really part of the charm of her singing lay in the simplicity of the singer. Her life had been spent in a city, where she came in daily contact with grand and highly cultivated voices, and she, therefore, gauged her own as simply one among many, and a bird could hardly have appeared less conscious of his powers than did she.
Not so her audience. They thundered their delight until again and again she was obliged to appear, and each time she sang a simple little song or hymn, suited to the musical capacities of the audience, so that she but increased their desire for more.
It was all delightful. Yet really, sordid beings that they were, I shall have to admit that the crowning delight was when they met the next morning, tired, but happy, and counted over their gains, and looked in each other's faces, and exclaimed, and laughed, and actually cried a little over the pecuniary result.
"Girls," said Miss Benedict, her eyes glowing with delight, "we can carpet the entire aisles. Think of that!"