ociate with the name "lady." A truthful person may not be
kind. A woman may love beauty and still be hard. A perfectly pure woman
may be unfeeling, perhaps all the more because she needs no charity
herself. But a woman who does not show consideration for others cannot
be an ideal lady. If she is considerate in a mechanical way, because she
knows a lady must be so, it does not amount to much. And some women do
all they can for others from a sense of duty. They study to make others
happy in even trivial ways. They are good women, and on the
whole--ladies. But the woman whose love for others is spontaneous, who
sheds the radiance of kindness about her because she cannot help it--she
is the lovely lady whose charm we all feel. Truth and love are the
eternal foundations of the character of a real lady.

IX

THE PROBLEM OF CHARITY.

I suppose every large-hearted girl wishes to do some work which will add
to the happiness of others, and most girls would like to do a little, at
least, outside of their own immediate circle. It seems to me that the
most beautiful charity is always that which is done within one's own
circle. There is the personal giving, the real denial of ourselves for
others, the doing of the duties which come to us rather than of those we
have fancifully chosen. And these duties are done for love.

Do you remember how Mrs. Pardiggle in "Bleak House" tried to interest
Esther and Ada in some great schemes for doing good by wholesale, and
how Esther modestly answered that they hardly felt equal to such great
things, but that they hoped if they were careful to do all they could
for those immediately about them their circle would gradually widen?
This is the ideal way to do good. You help your neighbor simply without
any pretense or self-consciousness. She helps her neighbor, and so on.
There need be no break in the chain from lowest to highest. Mrs. Whitney
has taught beautiful lessons of this kind in her stories, emphasizing
the theory of "nexts." I have often thought this was the only kind of
charity which did not injure the giver; for the moment we try to help
those perceptibly below us we are apt to be condescending and to feel a
secret pride. Probably this inward satisfaction accounts for the
readiness of many people to undertake forms of missionary work, though
they are by no means thoughtful of those around them. There has often
been bitter criticism of foreign missions to the heathen on this grou