"I'll soon do that," said practical Mrs. Macdonald "I've got several in my mind this moment that I just ache to give a hand to. But only the very rich can help. You can't in decency take from people who have only enough to go on with.... Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll see if Agnes is getting the tea. I want you to taste my rowan and crab-apple jelly, Miss Reston, and if you like it you will take some home with you." * * * * * As they left the Manse an hour later, laden with gifts, Pamela said to Jean, "I would rather be Mrs. Macdonald than anyone else I know. She is a practising Christian. If I had done a day's work such as she has done I think I would go out of the world pretty well pleased with myself." "Yes," Jean agreed. "If life is merely a chance of gaining love she will come out with high marks. Did you give her the miniature?" "Yes, just as we left, when you had walked on to the gate with Mr. Macdonald. She was so absurdly grateful she made me cry. You would have thought no one had ever given her a gift before." "The world," said Jean, "is divided into two classes, the givers and the takers. Nothing so touches and pleases and surprises a 'giver' as to receive a gift. The 'takers' are too busy standing on their hind legs (like Peter at tea-time) looking wistfully for the next bit of cake to be very appreciative of the biscuit of the moment." "Bless me!" said Pamela, "Jean among the cynics!" CHAPTER XXI "The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in the light through chinks that time has made: Stronger by weakness wiser men become As they draw near to their eternal home: Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view That stand upon the threshold of the new." EDMUND WALLER. One day Pamela walked down to Hopetoun to lunch with Mrs. Hope. Augusta had gone away on a short visit and Pamela had promised to spend as much time as possible with her mother. "You won't be here much longer," Mrs. Hope had said, "so spend as much time with me as you can spare, and we'll talk books and quote poetry, and," she had finished defiantly, "I'll miscall my neighbours if I feel inclined." It was February now, and there was a hint of spring in the air. The sun was shining as if trying to make up for the days it had missed, the green shoots were pushing daringly forth, and a mavis in a holly-bush was chirping loudly and cheerfully. To-morrow they might be plunged back into winter, the green things nipped and discouraged, the birds silent--but to-day it was spring.