s 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 o