But Mr.
Meredith had said that he hoped his session would be well represented,
and Mr. Pryor had evidently taken the request to heart. He wore his best
black suit and white tie, his thick, tight, iron-grey curls were neatly
arranged, and his broad, red round face looked, as Susan most
uncharitably thought, more "sanctimonious" than ever.
"The minute I saw that man coming into the Church, looking like that, I
felt that mischief was brewing, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said afterwards.
"What form it would take I could not tell, but I knew from face of him
that he had come there for no good."
The prayer-meeting opened conventionally and continued quietly. Mr.
Meredith spoke first with his usual eloquence and feeling. Mr. Arnold
followed with an address which even Miss Cornelia had to confess was
irreproachable in taste and subject-matter.
And then Mr. Arnold asked Mr. Pryor to lead in prayer.
Miss Cornelia had always averred that Mr. Arnold had no gumption. Miss
Cornelia was not apt to err on the side of charity in her judgment of
Methodist ministers, but in this case she did not greatly overshoot the
mark. The Rev. Mr. Arnold certainly did not have much of that desirable,
indefinable quality known as gumption, or he would never have asked
Whiskers-on-the-moon to lead in prayer at a khaki prayer-meeting. He
thought he was returning the compliment to Mr. Meredith, who, at the
conclusion of his address, had asked a Methodist deacon to lead.
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