"My aunt in New Zealand," explained Ethel.
"Have you an aunt in New Zealand?" cried Meta. "I never heard of her!"
"Did not you? Oh! she does write such charming long letters!"
"Is she Dr. May's sister?"
"No; he was an only child. She is dear mamma's sister. I don't remember her, for she went out when I was a baby, but Richard and Margaret were so fond of her. They say she used to play with them, and tell them stories, and sing Scotch songs to them. Margaret says the first sorrow of her life was Aunt Flora's going away."
"Did she live with them?"
"Yes; after grandpapa died, she came to live with them, but then Mr. Arnott came about. I ought not to speak evil of him, for he is my godfather, but we do wish he had not carried off Aunt Flora! That letter of hers showed me what a comfort it would be to papa to have her here."
"Perhaps she will come."
"No; Uncle Arnott has too much to do. It was a pretty story altogether. He was an officer at Edinburgh, and fell in love with Aunt Flora, but my grandfather Mackenzie thought him too poor to marry her, and it was all broken off, and they tried to think no more of it. But grandpapa died, and she came to live here, and somehow Mr. Arnott turned up again, quartered at Whitford, and papa talked over my Uncle Mackenzie, and helped them--and Mr. Arnott thought the best way would be to go out to the colonies. They went when New Zealand was very new, and a very funny life they had! Once they had their house burned in Heki's rebellion--and Aunt Flora saw a Maori walking about in her best Sunday bonnet; but, in general, everything has gone on very well, and he has a great farm, besides an office under government."
"Oh, so he went out as a settler! I was in hopes it was as a missionary."
"I fancy Aunt Flora has done a good deal that may be called missionary work," said Ethel, "teaching the Maori women and girls. They call her mother, and she has quite a doctor's shop for them, and tries hard to teach them to take proper care of their poor little children when they are ill; and she cuts out clothes for the whole pah, that is, the village."
"And are they Christians?"
"Oh! to be sure they are now! They meet in the pah for prayers every morning and evening--they used to have a hoe struck against a bit of metal for a signal, and when papa heard of it, he gave them a bell, and they were so delighted. Now there comes a clergyman every fourth Sunday, and, on the others, Uncle Arnott reads part of the service to the English near, and the Maori teacher to his people."
Meta asked ravenously for more details, and when she had pretty well exhausted Ethel's stock, she said, "How nice it must be! Ethel, did you ever read the 'Faithful Little Girl?'"
"Yes; it was one of Margaret's old Sunday books. I often recollected it before I was allowed to begin Cocksmoor."
"I'm afraid I am very like Lucilla!" said Meta.
"What? In wishing to be a boy, that you might be a missionary?" said Ethel. "Not in being quite so cross at home?" she added, laughing.
"I am not cross, because I have no opportunity," said Meta.
"No opportunity. Oh, Meta, if people wish to be cross, it is easy enough to find grounds for it. There is always the moon to cry for."
"Really and truly," said Meta thoughtfully, "I never do meet with any reasonable trial of temper, and I am often afraid it cannot be right or safe to live so entirely at ease, and without contradictions."
"Well, but," said Ethel, "it is the state of life in which you are placed."
"Yes; but are we meant never to have vexations?"
"I thought you had them," said Ethel. "Margaret told me about your maid. That would have worried some people, and made them horridly cross."
"Oh, no rational person," cried Meta. "It was so nice to think of her being with the poor mother, and I was quite interested in managing for myself; besides, you know, it was just a proof how one learns to be selfish, that it had never occurred to me that I ought to spare her."
"And your school children--you were in some trouble about them?"
"Oh, that is pleasure."
"I thought you had a class you did not like?"
"I like them now--they are such steady plodding girls, so much in earnest, and one, that has been neglected, is so pleased and touched by kindness. I would not give them up for anything now--they are just fit for my capacity."
"Do you mean that nothing ever goes wrong with you, or that you do not mind anything--which?"
"Nothing goes wrong enough with me to give me a handsome excuse for minding it."
"Then it must be all your good temper."
"I don't think so," said Meta; "it is that nothing is ever disagreeable to me."
"Stay," said Ethel, "if the ill-temper was in you, you would only be the crosser for being indulged--at least, so books say. And I am sure myself that it is not whether things are disagreeable or not, but whether one's will is with them, that signifies."
"I don't quite understand."
"Why--I have seen the boys do for play, and done myself, what would have been a horrid hardship if one had been made to do it. I never liked any lessons as well as those I did without being obliged, and always, when there is a thing I hate very much in itself, I can get up an interest in it, by resolving that I will do it well, or fast, or something--if I can stick my will to it, it is like a lever, and it is done. Now, I think it must be the same with you, only your will is more easily set at it than mine."
"What makes me uncomfortable is, that I feel as if I never followed anything but my will."
Ethel screwed up her face, as if the eyes of her mind were pursuing some thought almost beyond her. "If our will and our duty run the same," she said, "that can't be wrong. The better people are, the more they 'love what He commands,' you know. In heaven they have no will but His."
"Oh! but Ethel," cried Meta, distressed, "that is putting it too high. Won't you understand what I mean? We have learned so much lately about self-denial, and crossing one's own inclinations, and enduring hardness. And here I live with two dear kind people, who only try to keep every little annoyance from my path. I can't wish for a thing without getting it--I am waited on all day long, and I feel like one of the women that are at ease--one of the careless daughters."
"I think still papa would say it was your happy contented temper that made you find no vexation."
"But that sort of temper is not goodness. I was born with it; I never did mind anything, not even being punished, they say, unless I knew papa was grieved, which always did make me unhappy enough. I laughed, and went to play most saucily, whatever they did to me. If I had striven for the temper, it would be worth having, but it is my nature. And Ethel," she added, in a low voice, as the tears came into her eyes, "don't you remember last Sunday? I felt myself so vain and petted a thing! as if I had no share in the Cup of suffering, and did not deserve to call myself a member--it seemed ungrateful."
Ethel felt ashamed, as she heard of warmer feelings than her own had been, expressed in that lowered trembling voice, and she sought for the answer that would only come to her mind in sense, not at first in words. "Discipline," said she, "would not that show the willingness to have the part? Taking the right times for refusing oneself some pleasant thing."
"Would not that be only making up something for oneself?" said Meta.
"No, the Church orders it. It is in the Prayer-book," said Ethel. "I mean one can do little secret things--not read storybooks on those days, or keep some tiresome sort of work for them. It is very trumpery, but it keeps the remembrance, and it is not so much as if one did not heed."