Mackaye."
I was ready to burst out crying, but I made up my mind and answered,
"I must see him once again, or he will think me so ungrateful. He is the
best friend that I ever had, except you, mother. Besides, I do not know if
he will lend me any, after this."
My mother looked at the old minister, and then gave a sullen assent.
"Promise me only to see him once--but I cannot trust you. You have deceived
me once, Alton, and you may again!"
"I shall not, I shall not," I answered proudly. "You do not know me"--and I
spoke true.
"You do not know yourself, my poor dear foolish child!" she replied--and
that was true too.
"And now, dear friends," said the dark man, "let us join in offering up a
few words of special intercession."
We all knelt down, and I soon discovered that by the special intercession
was meant a string of bitter and groundless slanders against poor me,
twisted into the form of a prayer for my conversion, "if it were God's
will." To which I responded with a closing "Amen," for which I was sorry
afterwards, when I recollected that it was said in merely insolent mockery.
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