CHAPTER XII
THE FURTHER PURSUIT OF GOOD WORKS
‘All the same,’ said Jean Murray afterwards, ‘it doesn’t mean that the Canon’s sermon was wrong just because all of you were so stupid in the way you tried to make it work.’
She could not really resist such an enticing opportunity of showing her superiority; but her less fortunate school-fellows found it difficult to appreciate her point of view, and they resented it accordingly.
‘It’s only just by chance that it wasn’t you as well,’ Barbara hastened to point out.
‘And you know you began by being jealous because we were doing all the sacrificing,’ added Angela.
The others, not being in the inner circle of Jean’s friendship, did not venture on an open remonstrance; but one of them asked her bluntly what she considered the Canon did mean by his address.
Jean drew herself up complacently. ‘Well, of course he meant much bigger things than just picking up people’s thimbles and interfering with everybody all round,’ she began rather contemptuously.
‘He said little things, all the same,’ observed Mary Wells, doggedly.
‘That,’ said Jean, airily, ‘was only his way of putting it–and because he was a canon,’ she added, struck by a brilliant thought. ‘When you are a canon, the things you consider little are the same as the things that ordinary people call big.’