Ester Ried Yet Speaking | Page 3

I come and take that class next Sabbath?"
This simple, directly-put question brought the young man suddenly
from the heights of his excitement into visible embarrassment. He
looked down on the small, fair lady, reaching hardly to his shoulder,
attired in that unmistakable way which bespeaks the lady of wealth and
culture, and could imagine nothing more incongruous than to have her
seated before that class of swearing, spitting, fighting boys. Not that her
wealth or her culture was an objection, but she looked so utterly unlike
what he had imagined their teacher must be,--she was so small, so frail,
so fair and sweet, and ignorant of the ways of the great wicked world,
and especially of those great wicked boys! What could he say to her?
He was so manifestly embarrassed that the small lady laughed.
"You think I cannot do it," she said, almost gayly.
He hastened to answer her.
"Indeed, you have no idea of the sort of class it is. I have given you no

conception of it; I cannot. You would think yourself before a set of
uncaged animals."
"Yes, and in case of failure I should only be where the others are, who
have tried and failed. If you will introduce me, and your superintendent
will let me, I mean to try; and that will relieve you of the dilemma of
being entirely without a teacher for them."
Young Ried had nothing to say. He thought the attempt a piece of
folly,--a worse than useless experiment; but how was he to say so to the
wife of his employer?
That gentleman appeared just then, making haste.
"I was unavoidably detained," he explained; "I feared you would grow
weary of waiting. Ah, Ried, my wife has introduced herself, I see. Is he
the young man you were speaking of, Mrs. Roberts?"
"The very young man,--Ester Ried's brother. He doesn't know how glad
I am to have met him. Some day when we are better acquainted, and
you trust me more fully, I am going to tell you how I became so deeply
interested in your dear sister. Meantime this little matter should be
definitely settled. Mr. Roberts, I have invited myself to take a class
to-morrow down at the South End Mission."
"Have you, indeed?"
Mr. Roberts spoke heartily, and seemed by no means dismayed,--only a
trifle perplexed as to details.
"How can we manage it, Flossy? My prison class takes me in an
opposite direction at the same hour, you know."
"Yes, I thought of that; I propose to ask Mr. Ried to call for me, and
show me the way, and vouch for my good intentions after I reach there.
Do you suppose he will do it?" She looked smilingly from her husband
to young Ried, and both waited for his answer.

"I obey directions," he said, bowing respectfully to Mr. Roberts. "Am I
to have the honor of being detailed for that service to-morrow?"
"So Mrs. Roberts says," was the good-humored reply, and then the
merchant took his wife away to their waiting carriage that had drawn
up before the door, leaving Alfred Ried, if the truth must be told, in a
fume.
"Much she knows what she is talking about!" he said, jerking certain
boxes out of their places on the shelves, and then banging them back
again, seeming to suppose that he was by this process putting his
department in order for closing. "Little bit of a dressed-up doll! They
will tear her into ribbons, metaphorically, if not literally, before this
time to-morrow! She thinks, because she is the wife of Evan Roberts,
the great merchant, she can go anywhere and do anything, and that
people will respect her. She has never had anything to do with a set of
fellows who care less than nothing about money and position, except to
be ten times more insolent and outrageous in their conduct than they
would if she had less of it! I shall feel like a born idiot in presenting
this pretty little doll to teach that class! Mr. Durant will think I have
lost what few wits I had! What can possess the woman to want to try?
It is just because she has no conception of what she is about! But Mr.
Roberts must know--I wonder what he means by permitting it?"
In very much the same state of mind did our young man pilot his new
and unsought-for recruit into the crowded mission rooms of the South
End on the following Sabbath afternoon. She looked not one whit less
able to compete with the terrors which awaited the teacher of the
formidable class.
Her dress was simplicity itself, according to Mrs. Roberts' ideas of
simplicity; yet, from the row of ostrich tips that bobbed and nodded at
each other,