Evadne flushed with pleasure. "Why, that is a beautiful character! I
only wish I deserved it. But I fear you are very much mistaken in me,
though it is very kind in you to think such nice things."
"Nonsense, child! I don't waste my time thinkin'. Let me have a good
look at your face for half an hour and I'll know as much about you as
you could tell me in a week. Malviny Higgins has just come back from
Bosting with her head full of sykick forces an' mental affinities an'
the dear knows what else, but I think it's just a cultivation of our
common senses--number, five. You can feel a person without touching
them; it's in the air all round you; and you don't need much
discrimination to know whether what you will say will hurt them or be a
blessin'. The main thing is to put yourself in their shoes before you
begin to talk."
"Their shoes, Miss Riggs," laughed Evadne, "why they might not fit."
"Penelope," corrected her visitor, "Penel for brevity. Yes, they will
too, that kind of shoe leather is elastic. It's the old Bible doctrine,
'never do anything to others that you wouldn't like others to do to
you.' If people got the shoes well fitted before they let their tongues
loose, there would be a deal less sorrow and heartburn in the world."
"'Love thy neighbor as thyself,'" said Evadne. "I never thought of it in
that way before."
"Well," said Miss Riggs briskly, "I'm dredful glad you've cum, Evadne.
It'll do Mis' Everidge a sight of good to have you, though Marthe
Everidge is raised above the need of humans as far as any mortal can be
on this earth. With all their inventions there ain't nobody discovered
how to make spiritual photographs yet, or I would have the picture of
_her_ character in all the windows of the land. 'Twould do more good
than miles of tracts. I agree with Paul that livin' epistles make the
best readin' an' it don't seem fittin' that she should be shut up in
this little place where only a few of us have the right kind of
spectacles to see her through. Most of the folks just allow it's Mis'
Everidge's way, and would as soon think of tryin' to imitate her as a
tadpole would a star."
"But we are to imitate Christ," said Evadne.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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