Tess and Missy to talking about themselves instead. Not in the way
that makes you feel uncomfortable, as many older people do, but just
easy, chatty, laughing comradeship. You could talk to him almost as
though he were a boy of the "crowd."

It developed that the Reverend MacGill was planning a revival. He
said he hoped that Tess and Missy would persuade all their young
friends to attend. As Missy agreed to ally herself with his crusade,
she felt a sort of lofty zeal glow up in her. It was a pleasantly
superior kind of feeling. If one can't be fashionable and frivolous
one can still be pious.

In this noble missionary spirit she managed to be in the kitchen the
next time Arthur delivered the groceries from Pieker's. She asked
him to attend the opening session of the revival the following
Sunday night. Arthur blushed and stammered a little, so that, since
Arthur wasn't given to embarrassment, Missy at once surmised he had
a "date." Trying for an impersonal yet urbane and hospitable manner,
she added:

"Of course if you have an engagement, we hope you'll feel free to
bring any of your friends with you."

"Well," admitted Arthur, "you see the fact is I HAVE got a kind of
date. Of course if I'd KNOWN--"

"Oh, that's all right," she cut in with magnificent ease." I wasn't
asking you to go with me. Reverend MacGill just appointed me on a
kind of informal committee, you know--I'm asking Raymond Bonner and
all the boys of the crowd."