“_Never!_ But then Emily May is a ‘fine woman,’ every one says so—‘an excellent manager’—the best housekeeper in the county, and she is happy, busy and happy, because she deserves to be. I am, or if I could afford it, _should_ be idle, for I am not as fond of household work as Emily is, and I am discontented, and as idleness and discontent are sin, and sin is misery, therefore I am sometimes miserable, it is quite plain.” “Why don’t you overcome this sinful tendency then?” “As yet I have not been able to do it, I resolve—” “‘And re-resolve,’ and will be likely to ‘die the same,’ if you do not get to the root of your malady and understand it. Your explanation” (and the pastor smiled a slightly cynical smile) “is an orthodox piece of theology enough, as far as it goes. Idleness is certainly sinful and a fruitful cause of discontent, because it is opposed to the principles of our organization; there is no atom in the universe idle for a single instant, nor are we, even our bodies, _ever_ idle, even when sleeping, for the heart, lungs, and brain continue to perform their functions, even when _dead_; for when the dust returns to dust, its particles, through a thousand ramifications, perform a thousand services in the universe. And the mind? Is the mind _ever_ idle? Has the course of thought been once really arrested since it first began? It has flowed in countless millions of courses; it has been suddenly turned aside, but has it ever stopped? Your heart has beaten, your brain worked for twenty years, to what purpose? No, Miss Churchill, by _idleness_ you mean misdirection of energies; and by _discontent_ the pain that naturally follows therefrom. Listen to me, Miss Churchill.” Sophie was listening to him with interest—these thoughts, however old, were to the unopened mind of the young girl new and striking. “Listen, I can explain your friend’s happiness and your own misery, better and more satisfactorily than you have done—and by doing so, illustrate the lesson I wish to give you; and further and more completely to illustrate my theory, I must bring in another acquaintance of ours, Mrs. Gardiner Green; what is her character, Sophie?” “An elegant woman, all the neighbors say, but always in a bustle, always overheated about something, always anxious.” “I thought so! she will do for an illustration of my first class _à merveille_.