"Do you think so? I don't. I read that no man liveth or dieth to himself, and that whosoever will come after the divine Pattern of all must deny himself and take up his cross daily. I think, moreover, that the best way of improving ourselves is simply to do our duty as it is presented to us."
"I don't believe much in duty, anyhow," said Marion, shifting her ground. "I think the ruling principle should be love, and not duty."
"Love of what?" asked Mrs. Campbell.
Marion was not prepared with an answer.
"I don't like this opposing of love and duty which I find is so much the fashion," continued Mrs. Campbell. "They are no more opposed than a man's flesh and bones are opposed, if you will forgive a doctor's wife for using such an anatomical figure. The skeleton alone would never make a man, but the man would be worth little without it. He would be like the Boneless in grandfather's story—a poor crawling creature, quite unable to stand upright, and having, moreover, if I remember rightly, a very uncomfortable habit of strangling people. As to your heroine, Marie, I must say, at the risk of lowering myself in your opinion, that I do not at all admire her."
"But she accomplished so much, Aunt Christian. Just think how she helped those people who were afflicted with the insanity of their daughter, and trained the children when their mother had spoiled them and all the rest. Was not that better than spending her life in making shirts and butter and reading the newspaper to her uncle?"
"No, Marie, I don't think it was, not if the shirts and the butter, and so on, were the work which Providence had given her."
"Well, I can't agree with you," said Marion; "and I don't think you are very consistent with yourself, Aunt Christian. Why didn't you stay at home?"
"Because, my dear, I had my living to earn. Times were hard in those days. The farm produced little, and there was no market for that little. Mother was very delicate, and the hive would not hold honey for us all. I would gladly have stayed at home; but as I said, I had my living to earn. I always expected to come home when Aunt Baby married, but after her great disappointment there was an end of that, and then Eiley came home to be cared for."
"Why, Aunt Christian, you don't mean to say that Aunt Baby ever had a love-affair?" exclaimed Marion. "I should as soon expect to hear such a story of old Ball."