‘Do you really think we are any good to her?’ inquired the Vicar, in his dreamily uncertain way, as of a man who was too doubtful about the groundwork of existence to feel any certainty about its minor details. This was his Bishop Berkeley mood, his mind varying in hue and tone according to the book he was reading. Just now he felt that mind was paramount over matter, and was hardly disposed to interest himself warmly in a young woman who might have no existence except in his own idea of her. ‘My dear, our house is the only notion of home the poor child has,--the only place where she meets pleasant people, or hears and sees pleasant things. How can we fail to improve and develop her? I am sure, without egotism, I may say that I have been a God-send to that motherless girl. Think how _farouche_ she was when she first came to us.’ ‘Yes, she was a wild, untamed kind of creature,’ assented the Vicar. ‘Beautiful as a portrait by Rembrandt though, with that tawny skin of hers. I call her _la belle sauvage_. She always reminds me of Pocahontas.’ ‘Now wouldn’t it be a blessing, Clement, if we could see her well married--married to a man of position, you know--and an honourable-minded man, like Kenrick? You know you always said he was honourable. You could always believe him.’ ‘True, my love. Kenrick had his good qualities. He was not a lad that my heart ever warmed to, but I believe he did his work honestly, and he never told me a lie.’ ‘Then don’t you think,’ urged the enthusiastic Selina, ‘that he would make Beatrix Harefield an excellent husband?’ ‘My dear,’ said the Vicar, gravely, ‘you are the best natured of women; but I am afraid you do a great deal of harm.’ ‘Clement!’ ‘Yes, my love. Good-nature in the abstract is undoubtedly beautiful; but an active good-nature, always on the alert to do some service to its fellow-creatures, is of all attributes the most dangerous. Even the attempt of this good man, Bishop Berkeley, to found a college in the Bermudas resulted in waste of time and money. He would have done better had he stayed at his Irish Deanery. The man who does least harm in the world is your calmly selfish person who goes through life by the narrow path of a rational self-indulgence, and never turns aside to benefit or interfere with the rest of the human race.’ ‘One of your dreadful paradoxes, Clement. How does that agree with St. Paul’s definition of charity?’ ‘My love, St. Paul’s charity is a supremely passive virtue. It suffereth long, is not easily provoked, is not puffed up, thinketh no evil--all which qualities are compatible with strict neutrality as to one’s fellow-creatures’ affairs.’ ‘Suffereth long--_and is kind_, you left that out, Clement.’