"'I need not have asked the question,' she answers. 'A glance at your dress might have told me that you would not call at Hopefield in that gown, Marian, but anything is good enough for my poor little hut of a place. It was different when you and I were at school together, for then, Sir John Hope's father was working for weekly wages, and mine was member for the county. As to my being at home and at liberty, there is little fear of my being out. People who have come down in the world are not overdone either with callers or engagements.'
"I listen in silence and not unsympathetically, for I know it must be hard for my old friend to compare the past with the present; but all the while she is speaking, I cannot help contrasting her with that other clear friend who has suffered similar reverses, but finds brightness in everything, and is ever looking out for causes of thankfulness. I try to tell her, perhaps, how well I remember those old days, and how gratefully I think of the hospitality I received under her father's roof. I even venture to reproach her for refusing my invitations, when she knows no guest would be more honoured here than herself. Then she tells me, with tears, that she cannot bear to meet people who are mere nobodies, but who would look down upon her on account of her poverty.'
"What an unpleasant old lady!" said Uncle Maurice. "Have you tried the effect of going in all your grandeur, or of a little wholesome neglect in the matter of invitations?"
"I have tried both and with equal success," replied Mrs. Payne. "When I went in my best bib and tucker, I heard remarks made about the taste which induced people to flaunt their finery before the eyes of those whose birth and social position entitled them to similar luxuries, but whose purse would only provide bare necessaries. I was once so annoyed at her ungracious reception of my invitations, that I resolved to give no more, but the result was too terrible."
"Is it worth while to concern yourself about pleasing a person of such an unhappy temperament?" asked Uncle Maurice. "I feel with you that if by slackening our pace, or shortening our steps we can strengthen the weak, encourage the timid, or stimulate the fainthearted to renewed effort, we ought to make the attempt, but in cases like the former—"
"It is perhaps still more incumbent upon us, and that because they are so unhappy. I have no doubt that during her solitary hours, my discontented friend would be more miserable still but for my efforts to please her, and I am quite sure that I am the happier for having tried to do it, whether successful or not," said Mrs. Payne.
"True, Marian, and it seems to me that there is hardly any act in our social, even our religious life, about which we might not advantageously ask ourselves, 'Am I walking too big?' Sometimes, the timid Christian is afraid to offer his services, though he is longing to do something for God's glory and the souls of his fellow-creatures, because he thinks that others are dedicating five talents while he has only one. By comparison, his powers are so contemptible. Or, he does not like to give shillings where his neighbour gives pounds. He sees him stride on boldly, both in his work and gifts, and he shrinks into himself and fears to step out at all, because he cannot keep pace with him. Ah! I have often thought that in addition to the magnificent generosity of the poor widow who gave her two mites, there was also magnificent courage in the mode of their bestowal.
"Surely, if ever there was a place when people were trying to walk big and look big, it was when the rich were casting in their coins by handfuls, and with an ostentatious clatter into the treasury of God's house in old Jerusalem! Yet she of her penury gave more than they all, though it was the least the law permitted, and was all her living.
"She dared to step beside them, and her Lord saw and valued her offering at true worth."
Uncle Maurice spoke from his heart, and his sister sympathised with his enthusiasm.