The Island of Faith | Page 4

a group of mothers in the art of making
cakes and pies and salads, and of hearing a half hundred little children
repeat their A B Cs. Only the difference in setting, only the twang of
foreign tongues, only the strange precociousness of the children, made
life at all different from the life at home. She told herself, fiercely, that
she might be a teacher in a district school--a country school--for all the
good she was accomplishing.
She had offered, so many times, to do visiting in the tenements--to call
upon families of the folk who would not come to the Settlement House.
But the Superintendent had met her, always, with a denial that was
wearily firm.
"I have a staff of women--older women from outside--who do the
visiting," she had said. "I'm afraid" she was eyeing Rose-Marie in the
blue coat and the blue tam-o'-shanter, "I'm afraid that you'd scarcely
be--convincing. And," she had added, "Dr. Blanchard takes care of all
the detail in that department of our work!"
Dr. Blanchard ... Rose-Marie felt the tears coming afresh at the thought
of him! She remembered how she had written home enthusiastic,
schoolgirlish letters about the handsome man who sat across the dining
table from her. It had seemed exciting, romantic, that only the three of
them really should live in the great brownstone house--the Young
Doctor, the Superintendent--who made a perfect chaperon--and herself.
It had seemed, somehow, almost providential that they should be
thrown together. Yes, Rose-Marie remembered how she had been
attracted to Dr. Blanchard at the very first--how she had found nothing
wanting in his wiry strength, his broad shoulders, his dark, direct eyes.
But she had not been in the Settlement House long before she began to
feel the clash of their natures. When she started to church service, on
her first Sunday in New York, she surprised a smile of something that
might have been cynical mirth upon his lean, square-jawed face. And

when she spoke of the daily prayers that she and her aunts had so
beautifully believed in, back in the little town, he laughed at her--not
unkindly, but with the sympathetic superiority that one feels for a too
trusting child. Rose-Marie, thinking it over, knew that she would rather
meet direct unkindness than that bland superiority!
And so--though there had never been an open quarrel until the one at
the luncheon table--Rose-Marie had learned to look to the
Superintendent for encouragement, rather than to the Young Doctor.
And she had frigidly declined his small courtesies--a visit to the movies,
a walk in the park, a 'bus ride up Fifth Avenue.
"I never went to the movies at home," she had told him. Or, "I'm too
busy, just now, to take a walk." Or, "I can't go with you to-day. I've
letters to write."
"It's a shame," she confided, on occasion, to the Superintendent, "that
Dr. Blanchard never goes to church. It's a shame that he has had so
little religious life. I gave him a book to read the other day--the letters
of an American Missionary in China--and he laughed and told me that
he couldn't waste his time. What do you think of that! But later,"
Rose-Marie's voice sank to a horrified whisper, "later, I saw him
reading a cheap novel--he had time for a cheap novel!"
The Superintendent looked down into Rose-Marie's earnest little face.
"My dear," she said gently, stifling a desire to laugh, "my dear, he's a
very busy man. He gives a great deal of himself to the people here in
the slums. The novel, to him, was just a mental relaxation."
But to the Young Doctor, later, the Superintendent spoke differently.
"Billy Blanchard," she said, and she only called him Billy Blanchard
when she wanted to scold him, "I've known you for a long time. And
I'm sure that there's no harm in you. Of course," she sighed, "I wish that
you could feel a little more in sympathy with the spiritual side of our
work. But I've argued with you, more than once, on that point!"
The doctor, who was packing medicines into his bag, looked up.
"You know, you old dear," he told her, "that I'm hopeless. I haven't had
an easy row to hoe, not ever; you wouldn't be religious yourself if you
were in my shoes! There--don't look so shocked--you've been a mother
to me in your funny, fussy way, since I came to this place! That's the
main reason, I guess, that I stick here, as I do, when I could make a lot
more money somewhere else!" He reached up to pat her thin hand, and

then, "But why are you worrying, just now, about my soul?" he
questioned.
The Superintendent sighed again.
"It's the little Thompson girl," she answered; "she's so