“And I am afraid, uncle, that you do not find them improve upon acquaintance.”
“Just so, Horace; they don’t suit my taste at all.”
“And yet, dear uncle, with all their dash, and brusquerie, and fastness, they really are most kind-hearted and unselfish girls.”
“Kind-hearted, I allow, but I doubt their unselfishness.”
“But why, uncle? What would you have more? They certainly don’t spare themselves. They are here, there, and everywhere, when any good is to be done, and think nothing of spending any amount of time and money in making other people happy.”
“True, Horace, but there is a pleasurable excitement in all this which more than overbalances any trouble it may cost, especially when the world’s applause for their good deeds is thrown into the same scale.”
“But,” remonstrated the young man, in rather a disturbed and anxious tone, “is not this dealing them a little hard measure? Where shall we find anything that will deserve the name of unselfishness, if we weigh people’s actions too rigorously?”
“Ah! You think me severe and uncharitable, Horace. But now, it just comes to this. What do the Misses Wilder and their brother (for I suppose we must take him into consideration too), really forsake or give up in order to do good? I don’t pretend to know the private affairs of the family generally, but certainly there are strong rumours afloat that the maxim, ‘Be just before you are generous,’ is not acted upon by the young people in their money concerns. I allowed just now that they are good-natured, but good-nature is a very different thing from unselfishness. What personal gratification do they surrender in order to do good? What worldly pleasure or amusement do they deny themselves? What extravagance do they curtail?”
“I can’t say much for them in that respect, certainly,” replied the young man thoughtfully; “indeed, I must frankly confess that I have heard more than once from the eldest Miss Wilder the expression of her hope and conviction that the united good deeds of the family would be accepted, by the world at any rate, as a sort of atonement for follies and excesses which clearly could not be justified in themselves.”
“I can well believe it, my dear nephew: but I have something much weightier to say on the subject, and it is this. There is manifestly one great want in all the doings of these kind-hearted people at Holly House, which would make me at once deny the character of unselfishness to their best deeds.”