"I think," said Louise, with smiling mouth and eyes, and sweet, decided voice, "I think, my dear, if I were you, I would begin with that black kettle."
Then you should have seen the sudden changing of Dorothy's face. Surprise, disappointment, intense mortification, all struggling with a sense of being misunderstood, being wronged, spoke in her eyes and the quiver of her lips.
"You think I am teasing you, Dorrie," and her new sister's voice was very tender. "Nothing is further from my intention. I honestly mean what I say. That very kettle which gives you Monday morning trouble can help you to a first victory; and it is a symbol of all the other things, small in themselves but amounting to much counted together, that can be made to serve you to-day."
"I did mean to try to do right; but I wanted to do something for Christ."
Dorothy's voice was subdued.
"And you think that Jesus Christ has nothing to do with the black kettle, or the boiler, or the sink, or a dozen other things with which you will come in contact to-day? That is such a mistake. Don't you begin your Christian life by supposing that all these duties which fall upon us in such numbers consume just so much time that must be counted out, and with the piece that is left we are to serve him. Remember it is he who said, 'Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' Doesn't that 'whatsoever' cover the pudding-kettle too, Dorrie?"
New light was struggling on Dorrie's face—just a glimmer, though, shadowed by bewilderment.
"It sounds as though it ought to," she said slowly. "And yet I cannot see how. What can my dish-washing have to do with serving Jesus? It seems almost irreverent."
"It can't be irreverent, dear, because he said it himself. 'Diligent in business, serving the Lord.' There is no period dividing these. I long ago discovered that I could make a bed and sweep a room for his sake as surely as I could speak a word for him. It is my joy, Dorrie, that he has not separated any moment of my life from him, saying, 'Here, so much drudgery each day, from which I must be entirely separated; then, when that is done, you may serve me.' Work so divided would be drudgery indeed. I bless him that I may constantly serve, whether I am wiping the dust from my table or whether I am on my knees."
"Well, how?" said Dorothy. She had a habit of occasionally flashing a question at one, a direct, firm way that meant business. The tone of this one said, "This is all new to me, but I mean to get at it, I intend to understand it and do it." "Louise, how could I be doing one thing for Jesus while I was washing the pudding-kettle?"