Working in the Shade | Page 8

have a large share of this very unlovable quality. Perhaps we have all of us more of it than we should like to admit to ourselves. But now, to tell the truth, I am on the look-out for one or two unselfish people;--can either of you, my dear friends, help me to find them?"
"I think you will search in vain in this neighbourhood," said the old lady dryly.
"Nay, my dear Miss Stansfield, are you not a little uncharitable? Surely you can point me to some who love doing good, and forget themselves in doing it."
"I can say `Yes' to the first but not to the last part of your question," was the reply. "There are plenty who love doing good, according to the popular estimate of goodness; but they love still more to be known and praised as the doer of it."
"Well," rejoined her visitor, "granting this in a measure, I should still like to know of some of these popular good-doers. We must make considerable allowance for human frailty. Perhaps I shall be able to pick out a real jewel, where you have believed them to be only coloured glass and tinsel."
"I fear not, Colonel Dawson. However, I will mention a few of what I believe to be but counterfeit gems. There are the Wilders, for instance. Those girls are always doing good, and their brother too. You have only to look into the local papers to see what a broad stream of good works is perpetually flowing from that family. What with ecclesiastical decorations, Sunday-school and day-school fetes, dancing at charity balls, managing coal and clothing clubs, and a hundred other things in which the world and the Church get their alternate share pretty evenly, that family is a perfect pattern of good deeds for everybody to look at,--like the children's samplers, which their mothers point to with so much pride, as they hang up framed in their cottages."
The colonel looked grave, and said, "Then you do not consider that there are likely to be any unselfish workers in the Wilder family?"
"You had better ask my niece, colonel. She will give you an unprejudiced opinion."
The other looked towards the younger lady, and said, "I am asking now in confidence, and with an object, not from mere idle curiosity, far less from any wish to pick holes in the characters and conduct of any of my neighbours. So, Miss Mary, kindly give me your opinion."
Thus appealed to, the younger lady replied, but evidently with much reluctance, "I fear that my aunt is right in her judgment of the Wilders. I dare not recommend them to you as likely to prove, in the truest sense, unselfish workers. They are very kind and good-natured, and no one can help liking them; but--" and she hesitated.
"I understand you," said the colonel; "they would not come up to my standard, you think?"
"I fear not; but then I should be sorry to judge them harshly, only you asked my honest opinion."
"Oh, speak out, my dear, speak out," said her aunt; "they are but afflicted with the epidemic which has attacked all ranks in our day. Thus, where will you find a really unselfish servant nowadays? The old- fashioned domestics who would live a generation in a family, mourn over an accidental breakage committed once in a quarter of a century, and count their employer's interest as their own, are creatures entirely of the past. And as with maid and man, so with mistress and master, old or young. `What am I to get as an equivalent if I do this or that?' seems the prevailing thought now with workers of every kind."
"Ah yes," said the colonel thoughtfully, "there is too much truth in what you say; only, in the darkest night we may detect a few stars, and some very bright ones too, if we will only look for them. And I am looking for stars now, but I shall be quite content to get one or two of the second or third magnitude."
"I'm afraid you'll hardly be able to find any in this neighbourhood, for the clouds," said the old lady, with a smile, in which the bitter prevailed over the sweet.
"Nay, nay, my dear friend," cried the colonel cheerily, "don't let us talk about clouds this lovely June morning. I fear, however, that I must not look for what I want among the Wilders. I can readily understand that they might be unwilling to work in the shade, where there would be nothing to repay them except the smile of Him who will not let even the cup of cold water rightly given go unrewarded. What do you say to Lady Willerly's daughter? I have heard great things of her. They tell me she is one of the most unselfish creatures under