until then teaching school instead of cleaning rooms and ironing as Lutie did, really made no difference, of course. It was all silly anyway.
So Sherrill put out a friendly hand and greeted all the girls with her own warm smile, and they loved her at once. The strangest part about it was that somehow she couldn’t help liking them. They were all so friendly and eager, what was the use of trying to act exclusive?
There was one thing she couldn’t understand. She heard one of those girls just behind her speaking to Lutie. The words came out between the clamor of the people who were gathering. “She’s lovely, isn’t she? Is she saved, Lutie?” And Lutie murmured something very low that Sherrill couldn’t catch. Somehow she knew they were talking about her. And then the other girl said, “Well, we’ll be praying for her tonight,” and slipped away up front with a group of others, and whispered to them. They nodded, gave quick glances back, and a moment later Sherrill could see them off at one side bunched together with their heads bowed. A quick intuition told her they were praying for her, and the color mounted into her cheeks. Her chin went up a trifle haughtily. Why should she, Sherrill Cameron, need to be prayed for? And why should they presume to do it unasked?
But the room was filling up rapidly now. Lutie led her to a seat halfway up and gave her a hymn book. The little group of praying ones had scattered, one to play the old piano, two others to distribute hymn books and Bibles, and suddenly the room burst into song, but she noticed that two or three of them still kept their heads bent, their eyes closed as if they were yet praying.
Sherrill looked around her in amazement. Here was a crowd of people, almost all young people, and they were singing joyously as if it made them glad to do so. They were singing with that same lilt that Lutie had had while she was working, and their faces all looked glad, although some of them obviously must be very poor, if one might judge from their garments and the weary look on their young faces, while others again were well dressed and prosperous looking.
Presently they began to sing Lutie’s song:
“If I have sorrow in my heart,
What can take it away?”
And Sherrill, without realizing she was doing so, began to sing it herself, and felt a little of the thrill that seemed to be in the air.
She fell to thinking of her own interrupted life and wondering why it all had to be. Why couldn’t Carter have been all right, the perfect man she had thought him? Why did it all have to turn out that way, in that sudden mortifying manner? If it only could have happened quietly! Not in the face of her whole invited world as it were.
But suddenly she felt the audience bowing in prayer, and was amazed to hear different voices taking up petitions, so many young people willing to pray in public! And so simply, so free from all self-consciousness apparently. It was extraordinary. Even little Lutie beside her prayed a simple sentence.
“Please, dear Father, don’t let anything in us hinder Thy light from shining through us, so that others may see and find Thee.”
Dear little soul! How had Lutie learned all this sweet simplicity? Just a little serving maid, yet she seemed to have something really worthwhile. What was this mysterious power? Just an idea? A conviction?
One of the prayers impressed her deeply. It came from a girl’s voice up toward the front, perhaps one of those who had been introduced to her. It was “Dear Father, if any have come in here tonight not knowing Thee as Savior, may they find Thee and not go out unsaved.” Sherrill had a strange feeling that the prayer was for her, although she couldn’t exactly understand why she needed saving.
Then the prayers changed into song again, a rousing one:
“I’ve found a friend who is all to me,
His love is ever true;”
Ah! That was what she wanted, Sherrill thought, a friend whose love was ever true. It was almost uncanny, as if someone here knew just what she needed.
“I love to tell how He lifted me,
And what His grace can do for you,”
sang the audience, and then burst into that tremendous chorus that thrilled her, though she only half understood its meaning:
“Saved by His power divine,
Saved to new life