How Miss Con laughed!
"My dear, don't be absurd," she said: and I really expected to see Thyrza offended, only she never seems offended with anything Miss Con says.
"But I don't see any right or wrong in it," persisted Thyrza. "If I can't like people—"
"You are curt to some for whom you do care," Miss Con answered. "But that is not the point. The real question is,—How far are you and I free to indulge in repellent ways to those around us? And this question resolves itself into a second,—How ought we to feel towards those around us?"
Thyrza just looked down and said nothing.
"'Be pitiful, be courteous,' means more, I think, than love and politeness to our particular friends," Miss Con said. "And if we look at Christ, our Example,—that soon settles the matter. I don't think we can picture to ourselves as the barest possibility that He eves indulged in curtness of manner,—that He ever acted bluntly, or put on a repellent air. Stern and displeased He could be,—but not coldly stiff."
I do not know how Thyrza felt, but I know how I did.
"For of course it is self-indulgence,—the indulgence of a mood or humour," Miss Con added. "If we had more of our Master's spirit of love towards all men, I suppose we should not have even the inclination to treat them curtly. Love does not wish to repel."
And then she told us how often she was tempted in this way herself, and how she had to struggle against the tendency. I never should have supposed anything of the kind with Miss Con, but she says so, and I am almost glad, because it makes me hope that perhaps in time I may grow more like her.
It is wonderful how, if any doubtful point comes up, Miss Con seems always to look straight at the Life of our Lord for an answer. And it is still more wonderful how other people don't do so.