“And I suppose that it is caring for him so much that thou wouldst count nothing too great a sacrifice, to attain his highest good. That is how God loved us, my children.”
Eva thought this extremely poor and tame, beside her own lovely ideal.
“Then,” said Marie, “if I love Margaret, I shall want her to be happy. I shall not want her to make me happy, unless it would make her so.”
“Right, my child,” said Bruno, with a smile of approbation. “To do otherwise would be loving Marie, not Margaret.”
“But, Father!” exclaimed Eva. “Do you mean to say that if my betrothed prefers to go hawking rather than sit with me, if I love him I shall wish him to leave me?”
“Whom wouldst thou be loving, if not?”
“I could not wish him to go and leave me!”
“My child, there is a divine self-abnegation to which very few attain. But those few come nearest to the imitation of Him who ‘pleased not Himself,’ and I think—God knoweth—often they are the happiest. Let us all ask God for grace to reach it. ‘This is My commandment, that ye have love one to another.’”
And, as was generally the case when he had said all he thought necessary at the moment, Bruno rose, and with a benediction quitted the room.
“Call that loving!” said Eva, contemptuously, when he was gone. “Poor tame stuff! I should not thank you for it.”