It was more difficult for Ethel Venniker to conquer Mrs. Eversley. Mrs. Eversley’s sense of duty had raised a strong partition-wall between her visitor and herself. There are some people whose sense of duty approximates to a sense of the duty which other people owe to them. Mrs. Eversley, while admitting Miss Venniker’s social superiority, was very careful not to take any such steps as would imply an acknowledgement of her own inferiority; and she wasted a good deal of time in the vain occupation (to which other ladies besides Mrs. Eversley are sometimes given) of thinking what her visitor would think about her, when her visitor was not thinking about her at all, or was only thinking how to please her. But the time came when Mrs. Eversley was called upon to preside at her annual mothers’ tea-party on Twelfth Night. ‘You must not dream of coming to it,’ she said to Miss Venniker on the morning of the party. ‘They are only a number of old women, the labourers’ wives, very common people, as all ours are, and they do not know how to behave; but I think it right to have them. It gives them pleasure, poor things. Mr. Eversley or Gerald will amuse you in the drawing-room.’ But Ethel would not hear of being left out. She brushed aside all Mrs. Eversley’s kindly objections, that she was looking pale and tired, and must not over-fatigue herself. She insisted upon waiting on the old women herself, pouring out cups of tea, carrying round plates of bread and butter and buns, and persuading them to consume more than was good for their health, and to put something in their pockets for their children or grandchildren. When the tea was over, she asked if she might sing to them for a short time. They had listened, or some of them had, to her in church, and they were eager to listen again. So she took her seat at the piano, and for half an hour poured out in rich, liquid tones a series of simple melodies, ending with ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ which so worked upon the simple, uncultured natures of her audience that there were few dry eyes when the music died away. ‘Thank you, miss; God bless you, miss,’ they said at parting, as she shook hands with them all, and more than one of them on the way home were heard to remark that ‘it was somehow like being in heaven.’ Ethel Venniker was not conscious of having done any great thing. She had acted in the way that was most natural to her. The stars are not conscious of the holy thoughts that they kindle by their shining, nor the flowers of the beauty of their petals. It was her pleasure to make others pleased. But hers was the blessing of those who lay their graces and talents at the foot of the Throne, where the poor of God may gather them up.