"I have never looked at selfishness like that," she said, "as something which we idealize. I have always held that egotism is the thing of all others which we ought to guard against. And egotism seems to me ugly--not beautiful or rainbow-tinted at all. I tried to show in _Crooks and Coronets_ what an obstacle it is to our spiritual development, and how happiness is to be found in little deeds of kindness, small sacrifices for the sake of others, rather than in always considering ourselves." Annette did not answer. She knew her aunt's faith in spiritual homoeopathy. "I have had hundreds of letters," continued the homoeopath uneasily, "from my readers, many of them perfect strangers, thanking me for pointing out the danger of egotism so fearlessly, and telling me how much happier they have been since they followed the example of Angela Towers in _Crooks and Coronets_ in doing a little act of kindness every day." If Aunt Maria were alive now she would have been thrilled by the knowledge that twenty years after she had preached it the Boy Scouts made that precept their own. "Perhaps the man who was following the veiled figure did little kindnesses too, in order to feel comfortable," said Annette half to herself. Fortunately her aunt did not hear her. "I yield to no one in my admiration of Mr. Stirling," continued Miss Nevill, "but he suggests no remedy for the selfishness he describes. He just says people flee for their lives. Now, my experience is that they don't flee, that they don't see how selfish they are, and need helpful suggestions to overcome it. That is just what I have tried to do in my books, which I gather he has never opened." There was a subdued bitterness in her aunt's voice which made Annette leave her seat by the window and sit down beside her. "You have plenty of readers without Mr. Stirling," she said soothingly.