pleasure."

"I thought you had a class you did not like?"

"I like them now--they are such steady plodding girls, so much in
earnest, and one, that has been neglected, is so pleased and touched by
kindness. I would not give them up for anything now--they are just fit
for my capacity."

"Do you mean that nothing ever goes wrong with you, or that you do not
mind anything--which?"

"Nothing goes wrong enough with me to give me a handsome excuse for
minding it."

"Then it must be all your good temper."

"I don't think so," said Meta; "it is that nothing is ever disagreeable
to me."

"Stay," said Ethel, "if the ill-temper was in you, you would only be the
crosser for being indulged--at least, so books say. And I am sure myself
that it is not whether things are disagreeable or not, but whether one's
will is with them, that signifies."

"I don't quite understand."

"Why--I have seen the boys do for play, and done myself, what would have
been a horrid hardship if one had been made to do it. I never liked any
lessons as well as those I did without being obliged, and always, when
there is a thing I hate very much in itself, I can get up an interest in
it, by resolving that I will do it well, or fast, or something--if I can
stick my will to it, it is like a lever, and it is done. Now, I think it
must be the same with you, only your will is more easily set at it than
mine."

"What makes me uncomfortable is, that I feel as if I never followed
anything but my will."

Ethel screwed up her face, as if the eyes of her mind were pursuing some
thought almost beyond her. "If our will and our duty run the same," she
said, "that can't be wrong. The better people are, the more they 'love
what He commands,' you know. In heaven they have no will but His."

"Oh! but Ethel," cried Meta, distressed, "that is putting it too high.
Won't you understand what I mean? We have learned so much lately about
self-denial, and crossing one's own inclinations, and enduring hardness.
And here I live with two dear kind people, who only try to keep every
little annoyance from my path. I can't wish for a thing without getting
it--I am waited on all day long, and I feel like one of the women that
are at ease--one of the careless daughters."

"I think still papa would say it was your happy contented temper that
made you find no vexation."

"But that sort of temper is not goodness. I was born with it; I never
did mind anything, not even being punis