Sunny Slopes | Page 8

she talked to him after church. She called him on the telephone for directions in the Bible study she was taking up. She lounged in her hammock as he returned home from pastoral calls, and stopped him for little chats. David was her pastor, she was one of his flock.
But Carol screwed up her face before the mirror and frowned.
"David," she said to herself, when a glance from her window revealed David leaning over Mrs. Waldemar's hammock half a block away, doubtless in the scriptural act of explaining an intricate passage of Revelation to the dark-eyed sheep,--"David is as good as an angel, and as innocent as a baby. Two very good traits of course, but dangerous, tre-men-dous-ly dangerous. Goodness and innocence make men wax in women's hands." Carol, for all her youth, had acquired considerable shrewdness in her life-time acquaintance with the intricacies of parsonage life.
She looked from her window again. "There's the--the--the dark-eyed Jezebel." She glanced fearfully about, to see if David might be near enough to hear the word. What on earth would he think of the manse lady calling one of his sheep a Jezebel? "Well, David," she said to herself decidedly, "God gave you a wife for some purpose, and I'm slick if I haven't much brains." And she shook a slender fist at her image in the mirror and went back to setting the table.
David was talkative that evening. "You haven't seen much of Mrs. Waldemar, have you, dear? People here don't think much Of her. She is very advanced,--too advanced, of course. But she is very broad, and kind. She is well educated, too, and for one who has had no training, she grasps Bible truths in a most remarkable way. She has never had the proper guidance, that's the worst of it. With a little wise direction she will be a great addition to our church and a big help in many ways."
Carol lowered her lashes reflectively. She was wondering how much of this "wise direction" was going to fall to her precious David?
"I imagine our women are a little jealous of her, and that blinds them to her many fine qualities."
Carol agreed, with a certain lack of enthusiasm, and David continued with evident relish.
"Some of her ideas are dangerous, but when she is shown the weakness of her position she will change. She is not one of that narrow school who holds to a fallacy just because she accepted it in the beginning. The elders objected to her teaching a class in Sunday-school because they claimed her opinions would prove menacing to the young and uninformed. And it is true. She is dangerous company for the young right now. But she is starting out along better lines and I think will be a different woman."
"Dangerous for the young." The words repeated themselves in Carol's mind. "Dangerous for the young." Carol was young herself. "Dangerous for the young."
The next afternoon, Carol arrayed herself in her most girlishly charming gown, and with a smile on her lips, and trepidation in her heart, she marched off to call on her Jezebel. The Jezebel was surprised, no doubt of that. And she was pleased. Every one liked Carol,--even Jezebels. And Mrs. Waldemar was very much alone. However much a woman may revel in the admiration of men, there are times when she craves the confidence of at least one woman. Mrs. Waldemar led Carol up-stairs to a most seductively attractive little sitting-room, and Carol sat at her feet, as it were, for two full hours.
Then she tripped away home, more than ever aware of the wonderful charm of Mrs. Waldemar, but thanking God she was young.
When David came in to dinner, a radiant Carol awaited him. In the ruffly white dress, with its baby blue ribbons, and with a wide band of the same color in her hair, and tiny curls clustering about her pink ears, she was a very infant of a minister's wife.
David took her in his arms appreciatively. "You little baby," he said adoringly, "you look younger every day. Will you ever grow up? A minister's wife! You look more like a little girl's baby doll."
Carol giggled, and rumpled up his hair; When she took her place at the table she artfully snuggled low in her chair, peeping roguishly at him from behind the wedding-present coffee urn.
"David," she began, as soon as he finished the blessing, "I've been thinking all day of what you said about Mrs. Waldemar, and I've been ashamed of myself. I really have avoided her. She is so old, and clever, and I am such a goose, and people said things about her, and--but after last night I was ashamed. So to-day I went to see her, all alone by myself, without a gun or anything to protect