Let those who will talk of the decay of Christian faith in our day; so long as songs about Jesus and his love are bursting forth on every hand, thick as violets and apple blossoms in June, so long as the little Sunday-school song books sell by thousands and by millions, and spring forth every year in increasing numbers, so long will it appear that faith is ever fresh-springing and vital. It was the little children in the temple who cried, "Hosanna to the Son of David," when chief priests and scribes were scowling and saying, "Master, forbid them," and doubtless the same dear Master loves to hear these child-songs now as then.
At all events, our little party were having a gay and festive time over two or three new collections of Clarion, Golden Chain, Golden Shower, or what not, of which Jim had brought a pocketful for the girls to try, and certainly the melodies as they came up were bright and lively and pretty enough to stir one's blood pleasantly. In fact, both Aunt Maria and Mrs. Van Arsdel were content for a season to leave the door open and listen.
"You see," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, "Jim is such a pleasant, convenient, obliging fellow, and has done so many civil turns for the family, that we quite make him at home here; we don't mind him at all. It's a pleasant thing, too, and a convenience, now the boys are gone, to have some young man that one feels perfectly free with to wait on the girls; and where there are so many of them, there's less danger of anything particular. There's no earthly danger of Alice's being specially interested in Jim. He isn't at all the person she would ever think seriously of, though she likes him as a friend."
Mrs. Wouvermans apparently acquiesced for the time in this reasoning, but secretly resolved to watch appearances narrowly this evening, and if she saw what warranted the movement to take the responsibility of the case into her own hands forthwith. Her perfect immutable and tranquil certainty that she was the proper person to manage anything within the sphere of her vision gave her courage to go forward in spite of the fears and remonstrances of any who might have claimed that they were parties concerned.
Mr. Jim Fellows was one of those persons in whom a sense of humor operates as a subtle lubricating oil through all the internal machinery of the mind, causing all which might otherwise have jarred or grated to slide easily. Many things which would be a torture to more earnest people were to him a source of amusement. In fact, humor was so far a leading faculty that it was difficult to keep him within limits of propriety and decorum, and prevent him from racing off at unsuitable periods like a kitten after a pin-ball, skipping over all solemnities of etiquette and decorum. He had not been so long intimate in the family without perfectly taking the measure of so very active and forth-putting a member as Aunt Maria. He knew exactly--as well as if she had told him--how she regarded him, for his knowledge of character was not the result of study, but that sort of clear sight which in persons of quick perceptive organs seems like a second sense. He saw into persons without an effort, and what he saw for the most part only amused him.