I'm very grateful to my girls for helping
me as they do to be of use to them. It's quite wonderful what they have
done already. Our village life is in no sense like yours in England, you
know; these people are all very proud and independent. It's as a friend,
not as a Lady Bountiful, that I go among them."
"I see," said Sir Basil, with interest, "that's awfully nice all round.
I wish we could get rid of a lot of stupid ways of thought at home. I'll
see something of these friends of yours at the house, then. I'm immensely
interested in all these differences, you know."
"You won't see them at the house. Our relation is friendly, not social.
That is a froth that doesn't count."
"Oh! and they don't mind that--not having the social relation, I mean--if
they are friends?"
"Why should they? I am not hurt because they do not ask me to their picnics
and parties, nor are they because I don't ask them to my dinners and teas.
We both understand that all that is a matter of manner and accident; that
in essentials we are equal."
"I see; but," Sir Basil still queried, "you wouldn't care about their
parties, I suppose, and don't you think they might like your dinners? At
least that's the way it would work out, I'm afraid, at home."
"Ah, it doesn't here. They are too civilized for that. Neither of us would
feel fitted to the superficial aspects of the others' lives."
"We have that sort of thing in England, too, you know; only perhaps we
look at it more from the other side, and recognize difference rather than
sameness.
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