"But, my dear Miss Ansted, I am not the one of whom that inquiry should be made. If you belong to the Lord Jesus, surely he has work for you, and is able to point it out, and to fill your heart with satisfaction while you do his bidding."
There was a gesture almost of impatience.
"I tell you I don't understand such talk. It sounds like 'cant' to me, and nothing else; that is, it does when other people say it, but you seem different; you live differently, some way, and interest yourself about different matters from those which absorb the people whom I have heard talk that way. Now I ask you a straightforward question: What do you want me to do? What do you see that I could do, if I were what you mean by being a Christian?"
Claire's face brightened.
"Oh, that is such a different question!" she said. "I am really very glad of an opportunity to answer it. I know a dozen things that you could do. For instance, you could throw yourself into the life of this neglected, almost deserted church, and help to make it what it should be; you could give your time, and your money, and your voice, to making it arise and shine."
"How? What on earth is there that I could do, even if I wanted to do anything in that direction, which I don't?"
"I know it, but that doesn't hinder me from seeing what you could do. Why, if you want me to be very specific, if you have no better plan than we are working on to propose, you could join us with all your heart, and work with us, and worship with us on Sabbaths, and help us in our preparations for a concert."
"And sing in that stuffy room, to the accompaniment of that horrid little organ, and for the benefit of such an audience as South Plains would furnish! Thank you, I don't mean to do it! What else?"
"Of what special use is it for me to suggest ways, since you receive them with such determined refusals?"
"That I may have the pleasure of seeing how far your enthusiasm reaches. I would call it fanaticism if I dared, Miss Benedict, but that would be rude. Tell me what next?"