rom very childhood she had felt that the
essence of her own goodness, the essence of her duty in life, was the
doing of 'good' to others; from very childhood she had never doubted that
she was in a position to do this, and that those to whom she did good,
although they might kick against it as inconvenient, must admit that it
WAS their 'good.' The thought: 'They don't admit that I am superior!'
had never even occurred to her, so completely was she unselfconscious, in
her convinced superiority. It was hard, indeed, to be flung against such
outspoken rudeness. It shook her more than she gave sign of, for she was
not by any means an insensitive woman--shook her almost to the point of
feeling that there was something in the remonstrance of those dreadful
young people. Yet, how could there be, when no one knew better than she
that the laborers on the Malloring estate were better off than those on
nine out of ten estates; better paid and better housed, and--better
looked after in their morals. Was she to give up that?--when she knew
that she WAS better able to tell what was good for them than they were
themselves. After all, without stripping herself naked of every thought,
experience, and action since her birth, how could she admit that she was
not better able? And slowly, in the white room with the moss-green
carpet, she recovered, till there was only just a touch of soreness left,
at the injustice implicit in their words. Those two had been 'miserably
brought up,' had never had a chance of finding their proper place, of
understanding that they were just two callow young things, for whom Life
had some fearful knocks in store. She could even feel now that she had
meant that saying: 'I am sorry for you two!' She WAS sorry for them,
sorry for their want of manners and their point of view, neither of which
they could help, of course, with a mother like that. For all her
gentleness and sensibility, there was much practical directness about
Mildred Malloring; for her, a page turned was a page turned, an idea
absorbed was never disgorged; she was of religious temperament, ever
trimming her course down the exact channel marked out with buoys by the
Port Authorities, and really incapable of imagining spiritual wants in
others that could not be satisfied by what satisfied herself. And this
pathetic strength she had in common with many of her fellow creatures in
every class. Sitting down at the writing-table from which she h