"I suppose it may be," she returned. "But I hate talking about myself: it is an unpleasant subject."
"Most people do not find it such," said my father. "I could not honestly say that I do not enjoy talking of my own experiences of life."
"But there are differences, you see," she rejoined. "My history looks to me such a matter of course, such a something I could not help, or have avoided if I would, that the telling of it is unpleasant, because it implies an importance which does not belong to it."
"St. Paul says something of the same sort,—that a necessity of preaching the gospel was laid upon him," remarked my father; but it seemed to make no impression on Miss Clare, for she went on as if she had not heard him.
"You see, Mr. Walton, it is not in the least as if, living in comfort, I had taken notice of the misery of the poor for the want of such sympathy and help as I could give them, and had therefore gone to live amongst them that I might so help them: it is quite different from that. If I had done so, I might be in danger of magnifying not merely my office but myself. On the contrary, I have been trained to it in such slow and necessitous ways, that it would be a far greater trial to me to forsake my work than it has ever been to continue it."
My father said no more, but I knew he had his own thoughts. I remained kneeling, and felt for the first time as if I understood what had led to saint-worship.
"Won't you sit, Mrs. Percivale?" she said, as if merely expostulating with me for not making myself comfortable.
"Have you forgiven me?" I asked.
"How can I say I have, when I never had any thing to forgive?"
"Well, then, I must go unforgiven, for I cannot forgive myself," I said.