"One must do one's best for the poor, I know--for
conscience' sake and all that; it's our duty, and we all try hard to do
it. But they're so terribly ungrateful! Don't you think so? Do you know,
Miss Wade, in my father's parish--"
Hilda cut her short with a sunny smile--half contemptuous toleration,
half genuine pity. "We are all ungrateful," she said; "but the poor, I
think, the least so. I'm sure the gratitude I've often had from my poor
women at St. Nathaniel's has made me sometimes feel really ashamed of
myself. I had done so little--and they thanked me so much for it."
"Which only shows," Lady Meadowcroft broke in, "that one ought always to
have a LADY to nurse one."
"Ca marche!" Hilda said to me, with a quiet smile, a few minutes
after, when her ladyship had disappeared in her fluffy robe down the
companion-ladder.
"Yes, ca marche," I answered. "In an hour or two you will have succeeded
in landing your chaperon. And what is most amusing, landed her, too,
Hilda, just by being yourself--letting her see frankly the actual truth
of what you think and feel about her and about everyone!"
"I could not do otherwise," Hilda answered, growing grave.
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