The little girls were silent for a moment. Then Charity said:
"I suppose she practises her name. Granny often tells us we ought to make our names good. When I grow up and get rich, I shall give a lot of money away in charity; then I shall be acting out my name, shan't I?"
Lady Melville smiled.
"It is rather strange, but in the chapter in the Bible which tells about your name it says that you can give all your goods to feed the poor, and yet have no charity. You may do it to get praise from God, or from men, and not because you love them. We have false ideas of charity. It means love. You can love God, and everybody, if you are quite poor, and so be acting out your name now."
Charity thought over this.
"It says Charity is better than Hope or Faith," said Hope; "I wonder why. Charity often reminds me and Faith of that."
Charity hung her head.
"Well," said Lady Melville cheerfully, "I often tell you that you have all three beautiful names which ought to inspire you. Faith acts out hers without knowing it. If I were Charity, I should always try to be kind and loving to all, and not to think about myself at all, only of pleasing others. And if I were Hope, I should try to fill my mind with all the beautiful things we are told to hope for."
"I think my name is most difficult of all," said Hope, "because everything you hope for is always on in front of you; you never seem to catch it up!"
"Well," said Lady Melville smiling, "if we have got a sure hope of everything beautiful and happy coming to us in the future, we shan't mind about present troubles, and we shall be very happy people. You told me the other day that when Dr. Evans said there was hope of Faith's getting well again, you were so happy that nothing else seemed to matter. That is how we should all live. Nothing matters very much in this world because we have such beautiful, wonderful hopes about the next."