Working in the Shade | Page 8

among young people.
They seem to think of nothing but having their own way, and seldom
condescend to admit that those who have been brought up in less
enlightened days can have gained any wisdom by experience."

"Ah! I dare say," replied the other; "I've no doubt that young people,
many of them at least, 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