CHAPTER III.
SCHOOL.
"But, grandmamma," said Maggie, when her mother had been bolstered up, and was enjoying her nice soup, "I do not think waiting on mamma is a bit of a duty; I think it is a great, great pleasure."
"So do I, Maggie; but a pleasure may be a duty, may it not?"
Maggie looked doubtful.
"I don't quite see how, grandmamma. I thought a duty was something one ought to do, but did not quite want to do,—like forgiving people when they are unkind to us, or putting away my playthings when I would rather leave them; or—or—trying to have a cheerful mind about going to school, 'cause it's a help to mamma;" and Maggie smiled a wistful, half-tearful little smile, which went straight to the hearts of her mother and grandmother.
"But even a disagreeable duty may bring its own pleasure and satisfaction with it, darling, if we only go about it in the right way," said Mrs. Stanton; "and there is many a pleasant thing that is also a duty. You say you love to wait on your mother; but suppose you did not like it, would it be right for you to refuse to do what you could for her?"
"No indeed," answered Maggie promptly.
"Mamma seems to like that jelly pretty well," said grandmamma; "but is there no other reason why she should take it?"
"Yes," said Maggie; "because the doctor said she must eat everything that would make her strong and well."
"So, then, you see a pleasant thing may be as much a duty as a disagreeable one. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and duty is duty; and we cannot alter that, however it may affect ourselves. Only we must try, as I meant my story to show you, to do first the duty that is plainest, and which lies nearest to our hand, for that is God's work, and the thing He means us to do."