The Nether Millstone

by Fred M. White

Mary was silent. She had not looked at it in this light before. The delicacy and tactfulness of it, the fine self-abnegation, appealed to her strongly. With Connie, time was money, every hour she wasted represented the loss of some necessary of life. And here she was cheerfully spending her own golden minutes so that a poor invalid should not lack the peace of mind necessary to her recovery. This was a practical sermon for Mary, worked out to a womanly and logical conclusion. If Ralph Darnley could have looked into Mary's mind now he would have been pleased with the success of his experiment.

"Oh, how good of you," she cried, "how womanly and sweet! You are actually sacrificing yourself for the needs of others. I should never have thought of it."

"I shouldn't at one time," Connie admitted frankly, "but I was a spoilt child in those days, and gave no heed to anybody but myself. And when I came to London alone and penniless and friendless, it was Grace Cameron who first held out a hand to me. And Grace is capable of doing really good work. She is very different from me. If she could only get into the country for a time and regain her strength she would be heard of. But that is impossible!"

"Why?" Mary asked. She was deeply interested now. "Why can't she?"

"Because she helps to keep a widowed mother. One pound a week goes to the poor old mother who is so proud of her girl's success. It is one of the most pathetic and charming stories in the world. Mrs. Cameron is the widow of a clergyman who left her very badly off, and Grace came to London to gain a name with her brush. She did not succeed, but she never let her mother know, she has always sent her something. And that 'something' makes all the world to the dear old lady. You may call it a deception if you like, but I call it one of the grandest things I have ever heard of. And all the while Grace is hoping for the name that does not come, the name that will enable her to go into the country and turn her back upon those impossible duchesses for ever. The story is known to a few of us, and we take it in turn now that Grace is ill to do her work for her. I am going down to Grace's rooms after supper, and you can come along with me if you like."

"Oh, yes, yes," Mary cried, "I should love to go with you. You may think that I am very foolish and ignorant, but you are opening up a new world to me. Positively I did not know that there were such things as these; even you are a new type to me. And here am I, who have been living with my head in the clouds, regarding the universe as being made up of people like the Dashwoods and others, whose privilege and duty it is to serve them. How selfish!"

"Well, you are not selfish now," Connie said. "You had the pluck to turn out and get your own living rather than eat what you call the bread of charity."

"Pride," Mary exclaimed, "every bit of it pride. I was bitterly wounded with a trick that Fortune had played upon me; in my arrogance, I left home, though one kind heart bleeds for me. I only had my narrow point of view. And I hate this kind of thing, I could cry aloud at the sordidness of it. I can't endure it patiently as you do."

Connie laughed unsteadily. A mist crept into her eyes.

"It is because I have schooled myself," she said. "It is so weak to complain. But there are times when I should like to die and make an end of it all."