haritable?
Surely you can point me to some who love doing good, and forget
themselves in doing it."

"I can say `Yes' to the first but not to the last part of your
question," was the reply. "There are plenty who love doing good,
according to the popular estimate of goodness; but they love still more
to be known and praised as the doer of it."

"Well," rejoined her visitor, "granting this in a measure, I should
still like to know of some of these popular good-doers. We must make
considerable allowance for human frailty. Perhaps I shall be able to
pick out a real jewel, where you have believed them to be only coloured
glass and tinsel."

"I fear not, Colonel Dawson. However, I will mention a few of what I
believe to be but counterfeit gems. There are the Wilders, for
instance. Those girls are always doing good, and their brother too.
You have only to look into the local papers to see what a broad stream
of good works is perpetually flowing from that family. What with
ecclesiastical decorations, Sunday-school and day-school _fetes_,
dancing at charity balls, managing coal and clothing clubs, and a
hundred other things in which the world and the Church get their
alternate share pretty evenly, that family is a perfect pattern of good
deeds for everybody to look at,--like the children's samplers, which
their mothers point to with so much pride, as they hang up framed in
their cottages."

The colonel looked grave, and said, "Then you do not consider that there
are likely to be any unselfish workers in the Wilder family?"

"You had better ask my niece, colonel. She will give you an
unprejudiced opinion."

The other looked towards the younger lady, and said, "I am asking now in
confidence, and with an object, not from mere idle curiosity, far less
from any wish to pick holes in the characters and conduct of any of my
neighbours. So, Miss Mary, kindly give me your opinion."

Thus appealed to, the younger lady replied, but evidently with much
reluctance, "I fear that my aunt is right in her judgment of the
Wilders. I dare not recommend them to you as likely to prove, in the
truest sense, unselfish workers. They are very kind and good-natured,
and no one can help liking them; but--" and she hesitated.

"I understand you," said the colonel; "they would not come up to my
standard, you think?"

"I fear not; but then I should be sorry to judge them harshly, only you
asked my honest opinion."

"Oh, speak out, my