"Certainly, my dear; tell me all you wish to tell me of yourself, I shall be glad to hear it all; but I hope you will soon feel that you have a great deal more to tell me of your selfishness, than of your generosity." Florence looked at me in speechless surprise. "Because, Florence, I hope you will soon become really generous, generous at heart, and then those things which, now that you are only trying to be generous, it is hard for you to do, which you notice because they are done with a great effort, will be so easy and so common that you will forget to tell me about them—that you will not even notice them yourself."
"But how, when I get to be so generous, can I have any selfishness to write you about?"
"Ah, Florence! we are never quite free from selfishness, any of us, and the more generous we become, the more plainly do we see selfishness in acts and feelings which seemed to us quite free from it once. Do you not feel this yourself? Do not things seem selfish to you now, which only a week ago you did not think so at all?"
"Yes," said Florence, in a low voice, and then walked thoughtfully and silently by my side.
The next morning Florence returned home, and I did not see her again for nearly eighteen months. But I heard from her often, for our correspondence commenced very soon. Her first letters were filled with her own generous acts,—how she had risen early when she was very sleepy, that she might not keep nurse waiting—how she had sat quite still almost all day, when she had wanted to run about very much, because mamma was not well, and would have been disturbed by noise—how she had given her cousin Mary her very prettiest book, because she said she liked it. But it was not long before Florence began to write of her grief for selfish feelings, which, to use her own language, "if she tried ever so hard to get rid of them, would come back." Once or twice a letter came from her full of the bitterest shame and self-reproach for the selfishness of some action, which, a little while before, Florence would not have felt to be in the least degree wrong. I rejoiced at all this, for I saw it was as I hoped; Florence was becoming generous at heart—selfishness was becoming a hateful thing to her, and a strange thing, which like other strange things, could not make its appearance without being noticed. I would copy some of these letters for you, but I have other things to tell you of Florence, which I think will interest you more than her letters.
CHAPTER XI.
A NEW CREATURE.
Almost eighteen months after Florence had left us, came that bright and beautiful winter's morning which I described to you at the commencement of this book. You may remember that on that morning I accompanied Harriet and Mary to Mr. Dickinson's to hear a play, which was to form part of their Christmas entertainments, and that on returning home, I found Mr. Arnott's carriage waiting for me. The driver brought a letter from Florence, begging me to come as soon as possible to her sick and sorrowing mother. The letter was short, and did not tell me what was the cause of Mrs. Arnott's distress. I immediately packed a trunk, and sending Harriet home with Mary, prepared for my journey. It was one o'clock, however, before, with my utmost haste, I could set out, and the roads were so filled up with the snow of the previous night, that we travelled slowly, and I had gone little more than half way when the short winter's day was over. I therefore stopped all night at the same little inn where I had dined when going to Mr. Arnott's with Harriet and Mary. The next morning I was again on the road so early that I arrived at Mr. Arnott's before breakfast,—indeed, before any of the family, except Florence, was up. She did not expect me so early, and I entered the house so quietly, that I stood in the parlor with her before she knew that I had arrived.
No one who had seen the face of Florence, as her eye rested on me, could have doubted her delight at seeing me; yet, surprised and delighted as she was, she made no exclamation, but coming close to me, put her arms around me, and kissing me repeatedly, said, in a very low voice, almost a whisper, "How kind you were, Aunt Kitty, to come so quickly! We did not think you could be here before this evening."