The End of a Coil

"Is it quite certain that such a spirit is the one to be cultivated?"

"It makes them study," – said Mrs. Thayer, looking at her questioner to see what he meant.

"What do you think the Bible means, when it tells us not to seek for honour?"

"Not to seek for honour?" repeated the lady.

"Not the honour that comes from man."

"I didn't know it forbade it. I never heard that it was forbidden. Why, Mr. Eberstein, it is natural to wish for honour. Everybody wishes for it."

"So they do," Mr. Eberstein assented. "I might say, so we do."

"It is natural," repeated the lady.

"Its being natural does not prove it to be right."

"Why, Mr. Eberstein, if it is natural, we cannot help it."

"How then does trying to be No. 1 agree with the love that 'seeketh not her own'?"

Dolly was listening earnestly, Mr. Eberstein saw. Mrs. Thayer hesitated, in some inward disgust.

"Do you take that literally?" she said then. "How can you take it literally? You cannot."

"But Christ pleased not Himself."

"Well, but He was not like us."

"We are bidden to be like him, though."

"Oh, as far as we can. But you cannot press those words literally, Mr. Eberstein."

"As far as we can? I must press them, for the Bible does. I ask no more, and the Lord demands no more, than that we be like our Master as far as we can. And He 'pleased not himself,' and 'received not honour from men.'"

"If you were to preach such doctrine in schools, I am afraid you would have very bad recitations."

"Well!" said Mr. Eberstein. "Better bad recitations than bad hearts. Though really there is no necessary connection between my premises and your conclusion. The Bible reckons 'emulations,' Mrs. Thayer, in the list of the worst things human nature knows, and does."

"Then you would have a set of dunces. I should just like to be told, Mr. Eberstein, how on that principle you would get young people to study. In the case of girls you cannot do it by beating; nor in the case of boys, after they have got beyond being little boys. Then emulation comes in, and they work like beavers to get the start of one another. And so we have honours, and prizes, and distinctions. Take all that away, and how would you do, Mr. Eberstein?"

Mr. Eberstein was looking fondly into a pair of young eyes that were fixedly gazing at him. So looking, he spoke,.

"There is another sort of 'Well done!' which I would like my Dolly and Miss Christina to try for. If they are in earnest in trying for that, they will study!" said Mr. Eberstein.

Mrs. Thayer thought, apparently, that it was no use talking on the subject with a visionary man; and she turned to something else. The party left the dinner-table, and Dolly took her new acquaintance upstairs to show her the treasure contained in Mrs. Eberstein's old bookcase.

"Mr. Eberstein is rather a strange man, isn't he?" said Miss Christina on the way.

"No," said Dolly. "I don't think he is. What makes you say so?"

"I never heard any one talk like that before."

"Perhaps," said Dolly, stopping short on the landing place and looking at her companion. Then she seemed to change her manner of attack. "Who do you want to please most?" she said.

"With my studies? Why, mamma, of course."

"I would rather please the Lord Jesus," said Dolly.

"But I was talking about school work," retorted the other. "You don't suppose He cares about our lessons?"

"I guess He does," said Dolly. They were still standing on the landing place, looking into each other's eyes.

"But that's impossible. Think! – French lessons, and English lessons, and music and dancing, and all of it. That couldn't be, you know."

"Do you love Jesus?" said Dolly.

"Love him? I do not know," said Christina colouring. "I am a member of the church, if that is what you mean."

Dolly began slowly to go up the remaining stairs. "I think we ought to study to please Him," she said.

"I don't see how it should please him," said the other a little out of humour. "I don't see how He should care about such little things."

"Why not?" said Dolly. "If your mother cares, and my mother cares. Jesus loves us better than they do, and I guess He cares more than they do."

Christina was silenced now, as her mother had been, and followed Dolly thinking there were a pair of uncomfortably strange people in the house. The next minute Dolly was not strange at all, but as much a child as any of her fellows. She had unlocked the precious bookcase, and with the zeal of a connoisseur and the glee of a discoverer she was enlarging upon the treasures therein stowed away.

"Here is 'Henry Milner,'" she said, taking down three little red volumes. "Have you read that? Oh, it is delightful! I like it almost best of all. But I have not had time to read much yet. Here is 'Harry and Lucy,' and 'Rosamond,' and 'Frank.' I have just looked at them. And 'Sandford and Merton.' do you know 'Sandford and Merton'? I have just read that."

"There are the 'Arabian Nights,'" said Christina.

"Is that good? I haven't read much yet. I don't know almost any of them."

"'The Looking-Glass'" – Christina went on – "'Pity's Gift' – 'Father's Tales.'"

"Those are beautiful," Dolly put in. "I read one, about 'Grandfather's old arm-chair.' Oh, it's very interesting."

"'Elements of Morality'" – Christina read further on the back of a brown book.

"That don't sound good, but I guess it is good," said Dolly. "I just peeped in, and 'Evenings at Home' looks pretty. Here is 'Robinson Crusoe,' and 'Northern Regions;' I want to read that very much. I guess it's delightful."

"Have you ever been to school before?" said Christina. The books had a faint interest for her.

"No," said Dolly.

"Nor have I; but I know somebody who has been at Mrs. Delancy's, and she says there is one lovely thing at that school. Every month they go somewhere."

"They – go – somewhere," Dolly echoed the words. "Who go?"