“There she is—the darling!” exclaimed Miss Pritty, with a little skip and (excuse the word) a giggle as the bell rang.
“Miss Aileen Hazlit,” announced Miss Pritty’s small and only domestic, who flung wide open the door of the boudoir, as its owner was fond of styling it.
Whereupon there entered “an angel in blue, with a straw hat and ostrich feather.”
We quote from the last, almost dying, speech of a hopeless youth in the town—a lawyer’s clerk—whose heart was stamped over so completely with the word “Aileen” that it was unrecognisable, and practically useless for any purpose except beating—which it did, hard, at all times.
Aileen was beautiful beyond compare, because, in her case, extreme beauty of face and feature was coupled with rare beauty of expression, indicating fine qualities of mind. She was quiet in demeanour, grave in speech, serious and very earnest in thought, enthusiastic in action, unconscious and unselfish.
“Pooh! Perfection!” I hear some lady reader ejaculate.
No, fair one, not quite that, but as near it as was compatible with humanity. Happily there are many such in the world—some with more and some with less of the external beauty—and man is blessed and the world upheld by them.
The chief bond that bound Aileen and Miss Pritty together was a text of Scripture, “Consider the poor.” The latter had strong sympathy with the poor, being herself one of the number. The former, being rich in faith as well as in means, “considered” them. The two laid their heads together and concerted plans for the “raising of the masses,” which might have been food for study to some statesmen. For instance, they fed the hungry and clothed the naked; they encouraged the well-disposed and reproved the evil; they “scattered seeds of kindness” wherever they went; they sowed the precious Word of God in all kinds of ground—good and bad; they comforted the sorrowing; they visited the sick and the prisoner; they refused to help, or, in any way to encourage, the idle; they handed the obstreperous and violent over to the police, with the hope—if not the recommendation—that the rod should not be spared; and in all cases they prayed for them. The results were considerable, but, not being ostentatiously trumpeted, were not always recognised or traced to their true cause.
“Come away, darling,” exclaimed Miss Pritty, eagerly embracing and kissing her friend, who accepted, but did not return, the embrace, though she did the kiss. “I thought you were not coming at all, and I have not seen you for a whole week! What has kept you? There, put off your hat. I’m so glad to see you, dear Aileen. Isn’t it strange that I’m so fond of you? They say that people who are contrasts generally draw together—at least I’ve often heard Mrs Boxer, the wife of Captain Boxer, you know, of the navy, who used to swear so dreadfully before he was married, but, I am happy to say, has quite given it up now, which says a great deal for wedded life, though it’s a state that I don’t quite believe in myself, for if Adam had never married Eve he would not have been tempted to eat the forbidden fruit, and so there would have been no sin and no sorrow or poverty—no poor! Only think of that.”
“So that our chief occupation would have been gone,” said Aileen, with a slight twinkle of her lustrous blue eyes, “and perhaps you and I might never have met.”