The White Lady by Grace Livingston Hill

lap.
    Constance had heard of people to whom religion was a living, vital thing, influencing every action of their daily lives. She had never come into personal contact with anyone who seemed to her to be moved by such springs of action. She wondered whether it was possible that any mere belief could make a monotonous life seem sweet and beautiful.
    There was not much in the little white house to interest Constance. The midweek prayer meeting was the one break of the quiet in which Aunt Susan lived. It was as much a duty as it was a pleasure, and severe must be the storm that would keep the old lady away. Constance was not asked whether she would go, but was taken in a quiet, matter-of-course way, just as it was announced to her that dinner was ready. It would have been no more of a surprise to Aunt Susan and Sa’Ran if she had declined to eat than it would have been for her to decline to go with them to the prayer meeting. She had opened her lips to refuse but saw by her aunt’s face that it would be a serious breach of the decorum of the house. So she was silent and went upstairs to get ready, marveling what power it was that ruled the house. A little white satin ribbon hanging on the bureau bearing a printed Bible verse seemed to answer her as she turned on the light to adjust her hat.
    “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.”
She wondered vaguely whether it was this rule that made so quiet and peaceful a break in the previous hubbub and disappointing whirl of her life.
    The prayer meeting was dull beyond expression. She had to stifle a yawn behind her glove. She wondered how Aunt Susan could have stood years of them when this, her first one, was so great a bore. She marveled once more when Aunt Susan in her prayer that night thanked her heavenly Father for “the precious meeting we have attended this evening” and asked that they all might make it a means of grace to them during the remainder of the week. What was it that made Aunt Susan feel so? Was it just that her life was so empty of all else that she could count a prayer meeting a pleasure? She could not be merely saying these things as a matter of form; her tones were too genuine, and the look on her face during the meeting had been too exalted, to be other than real.
    There was much time for thought during the few days Constance spent with her aunt. Her whole mind and body seemed to be getting rested, and she was able to take up a question and think of it intelligently. Always the old house set among the dark cedars seemed to her a very possible refuge from her scorning world. Her imagination arrayed those large square rooms with costly rugs and bric-a-brac from the city home. She felt sure that her grandmother might be made happy there and kept from any great knowledge of the state of their finances.
    The only point that troubled her was that same financial one. When the five thousand dollars should be exhausted—and she had no very definite idea how long it would last—how was she to earn more? Was that scheme of starting a tearoom feasible at all? What did things cost? Would people buy in that little town? She wished she had asked more questions. Of course, there were other towns where a tearoom would succeed, but then there would not be such old houses everywhere with ghosts to make the rent cheap! Perhaps it was a wild scheme, but what if it was? It suited her, and she could see no possible harm in trying it.
    She began to ask questions and open her eyes to little household economies. She noted that people could dress in cotton and be just as happy as if they wore silk. At last, she surprised Sa’Ran with a request that she would teach her how to make that lovely bread, and Sa’Ran, nothing loath, immediately set about her task.
    If Constance had not been a most determined young woman, and also the possessor of good brains, she would not have learned so much in the few days she remained with her aunt. But she brought her modern city methods of