Working in the Shade | Page 9

the sun."
"Ay," said the old lady dryly, "when the sun shines on her; but you want workers in the shade. Grace Willerly will not do for that."
"You think not? Well, let me tell you what I have heard of her. Those who know her well say that she never seems so happy as when she is doing good and making others happy. Her mother calls her `my sunbeam.' She seems to take a pleasure in thwarting herself in order to gratify others. If she wants to go out for a walk, and some tiresome visitor comes in, she will laugh, and say, `I was just wanting some one to come and keep me in, for I dare say I should have caught cold if I had gone out just now.' Or it may be quite the other way. She is just sitting down to draw or play, and some one calls and asks her to take a walk, and she at once leaves her occupation, jumps up, and says, `Ah, how nice this is! I ought to take exercise, but felt disinclined; and you've come at the very right time, to entice me out.' In fact, her greatest pleasure seems to be to cross her own will and inclinations, that she may do what will give pleasure to others. Such is the picture that intimate friends have drawn of her; and certainly it is a very charming one. What say you to it, Miss Mary?"
"It is very beautiful, Colonel Dawson--" and she hesitated.
"Ah, then, too highly coloured, I suppose you would say. Give me your candid opinion."
"It is very difficult to say what I feel," replied Mary Stansfield, "without seeming to lay myself open to the charge of censoriousness or captiousness; and yet I cannot help seeing a shade of unreality, and even insincerity, on that bright and beautiful character,--that it wants, in fact, one essential element of genuine unselfishness."
"Of course it does," broke in the elder lady; "you mean that it is not free from self-consciousness and, more or less, of parade."
"I fear so, dear aunt. I cannot help thinking that, as some one has said of faith, so it may be said of true unselfishness, that `it is colourless like water,'--it makes no show nor assertion of itself. But dear Grace Willerly is a sterling character for all that."
"So then," said the colonel, after a pause, "I must give up in despair, must I? No, that will never do. Now, I am wanting a quiet worker in the shade for poor Bridgepath,--some young lady friend who has a little leisure time, and will go now and then and read in the cottages there the Word of God, and give some loving counsel to those who need it so much. I have the good vicar's full consent and approbation; he will gladly welcome any such helper as I may find for the post. It will be a true labour of love; and, without any more words I am come to ask Miss Stansfield if she will spare her niece for the good work, and Miss Mary if she will be willing to undertake it."
The reply of the two ladies, who were equally taken by surprise, was in each case made in a single word, and that word very characteristic. "Impossible!" cried the old lady. "Me!" exclaimed the younger one.
"Nay, not impossible, dear friend," said the colonel gently. "I want this service of love only once a week for an hour or two, and I am sure you can spare my young friend for that time.--And as for yourself, Miss Mary, I believe, from what I have seen of you, that you are just fitted for the work; and I am sure that you are too sincere to excuse yourself on the ground of an unfitness which you do not really feel."
"And what am I to do?" asked the old lady bitterly.
"Exercise a little of this true unselfishness, dear friend. You see there are many ways in which you too can show true unselfishness in the cause of that Master whom I know you truly love, though he has laid you aside from much active work for him."
Miss Stansfield did not answer for a time; she looked pained, but the bitterness had passed away from her countenance. Evading an immediate reply, she said, "I don't understand these many ways in which I can show unselfishness, Colonel Dawson."
"Do you not? May I mention some?"
"Yes, do," she replied earnestly.
"Well, bear with me then, while I make one or two suggestions which our late conversations have been leading up to. I will imagine myself in your place, and looking out to see where I may best put the stamp of the Cross on my life. I am wishing to do good, I am