Divers Women | Page 5

such a sin! The idea of Dr. Selmser going out to dinner on Sunday! I wonder he did not drop down in a faint! Papa, did you ever hear such a sermon?"
"It slashed right and left, that is a fact," said Mr. Harrison, between the mouthfuls of chicken salad and oyster pickle.
"A little too sweeping in its scope to be wise for one in his position. Have another piece of the turkey, James? He is running into that style a little too much. Some person whose opinion has weight ought to warn him. A minister loses influence pretty rapidly who meddles with everything."
"Well, there was everything in that sermon," said Miss Cecilia. "I just trembled in my shoes at one time. I expected our last escapade in the school hall would be produced to point one of his morals."
"You admit that it would have pointed it?" said the cousin Jim, with a meaning laugh.
"Oh, yes; it was awfully wicked; I'll admit that. But one didn't care to hear it rehearsed in a church."
"That is the trouble," mamma Harrison said. "Little nonsenses that do very well among schoolgirls, or in the way of a frolic, are not suited to illustrate a sermon with. I think Dr. Selmser is rather apt to forget the dignity of the pulpit in his illustrations."
"Lorena says he utterly spoiled the closing anthem by that doleful hymn he gave out," said Miss Lily. "They were going to give that exquisite bit from the last sacred opera, but the organist positively refused to play it after such woe-begone music. I wish we had a new hymn-book, without any of those horrid, old-fashioned hymns in it, anyhow."
It was Mr. Harvey Latimer's turn to speak:
"Oh, well now, say what you please, Selmser can preach. He may not suit one's taste always, Especially when you get hit; but he has a tremendous way of putting things. Old Professor Marker says he has more power over language than any preacher in the city."
"Yes," said Mr. Harrison, struggling with too large a mouthful of turkey, "he is a preacher, whatever else may be said about him; and yet of course it is unfortunate for a minister to be always pitching into people; they get tired of it after a while."
"Jim, did you know that Mrs. Jamison was going to give a reception to the bride next Wednesday evening?" This from Lily.
"No; is she? That will be a grand crush, I suppose."
"I heard her giving informal invitations in church to-day," Helen said, and one of the schoolgirls said:
"Oh, don't you think she said she was going to invite us? Celia told her to send the invitation to you, Mrs. Harrison. We felt sure you would ask us to your house to spend the evening; Madam Wilcox will always allow that. But there is no use trying to get her permission for a party. You will ask us, won't you?"
Whereupon Mrs. Harrison laughed, and shook her head at them, and told them she was afraid they were naughty girls, and she would have to think about it. All of which seemed to be entirely satisfactory to them. The conversation suddenly changed.
"Wasn't Mrs. Marsh dressed in horrid taste today?" said Helen Harrison. "Really I don't see the use in being worth a million in her own right, if she has no better taste than that to display. Her camels'-hair shawl is positively the ugliest thing I ever saw, and she had it folded horribly. She is round-shouldered, anyhow--ought never to wear a shawl."
"I think her shawl was better than her hat," chimed in Miss Lily. "The idea of that hat costing fifty dollars! It isn't as becoming as her old one; and, to make it look worse than it would have done, she had her hair arranged in that frightful new twist!"
"Why, Lily Harrison! I heard you tell her you thought her hat was lovely!" This from Lily's youngest sister.
"Oh, yes, of course," said Miss Lily. "One must say something to people. It wouldn't do to tell her she looked horrid." And the mother laughed.
"It is a good thing for Mrs. Marsh that she holds her million in her own right," observed cousin Jim. "That husband of hers is getting a little too fast for comfort."
"Is that so?" Mr. Harrison asked, looking up from his turkey bone.
"Yes, sir; his loss at cards was tremendously heavy last week; would have broken a less solid man. He had been drinking when he played last, and made horridly flat moves."
"Disgraceful!" murmured Mr. Harrison; and then he took another sip of his home-made wine.
There were homes representing this same church that were not so stylish, or fashionable, or wealthy. Mrs. Brower and her daughter Jenny had to lay aside their best dresses, and all the array of Sunday toilet, which