'Is he still so hopeless about her condition?'
'How can he be otherwise, Aunt Milly, when the doctor tells him it is only a question of time. Did you hear that he has resigned all share in the little legacy that has lately come to them? He says it will make them so comfortable that they will not need to keep their little school any longer; is it not good of him?' went on Olive, warming into enthusiasm.
'I think he has done the right thing, just what I should have expected him to do. And so you have strengthened him in his decision, Olive?'
'How could I help it?' she returned, simply. 'Can there be any life so noble, so self-denying? I told him once that I envied him, and he looked so pleased, and then the tears came into his eyes, and he seemed as though he wanted to say something, but checked himself. Do you know,' drooping her head and speaking in a deprecating tone, 'that hearing him talk like this made me feel dissatisfied with myself and—and my work?'
'Poor little nightingale! you would rather be a working bee,' observed Mildred, smiling. This was the meaning then of the shadowed brightness she had noticed last night.
'No, but somehow I could not help feeling his work was more real. The very self-sacrifice it involves sets it apart in a higher place, and then the direct blessing, Aunt Milly,' with an effort. 'What good does my poetry do to any one but myself?'
'St. Paul speaks of the diversities of gifts,' returned Mildred, soothingly. She saw that daily contact with perfect health and intense vitality and usefulness had deadened the timid and imaginative forces that worked beneath the surface in the girl's mind; a warped sense of duty or fear from the legions of her old enemies had beset her pleasure with sick loathing—for some reason or other Olive's creative work had lain idle.
'Do you recollect the talent laid up in the napkin, Olive?'
'But if it should not be a talent, rather a temptation,' whispered the girl, under her breath. 'No, I cannot believe it is that, after all, Aunt Milly, only I have got weary about it. Have I not chosen the work I liked best—the easiest, the most attractive?'
'Do you think a repulsive service would please our beneficent Creator best?'