“Then you must make yourself some good, dear; though I do not think that any of us can quite help being of some service to our friends and fellow-creatures. You have a delicate cousin to cheer up and help back to health and strength; and you must do your best to be kind and patient. And you will soon find how much pleasure there is in such a task, and gain yourself a sister, since you say you have never had one of your own.” Sheila’s day at the Manor was a very happy one, and she particularly enjoyed her bits of talk with Miss Adene, who promised to help at the bazaar and, if needed, to give some assistance at the glee club, where extra voices were wanted with a view to the coming concert. May and one of her brothers rode part of the way back with Sheila and Cyril, the girls in front, the young men behind. “Do you like your cousin Cyril?” asked May with the freedom only possible between quite young people. “Yes, rather,” answered Sheila. “I liked him very much at first. He seemed more like the people I had been used to, but I think I get rather tired of him. Do you like him?” “Not very much,” answered candid May. “The boys get on pretty well with him; but they call him rather a bounder all the same.” “What’s that?” asked Sheila, laughing. “Well, I’m not quite sure if I know; but it’s not a thing he’d like to be called. What the boys mean about him is that he’s half ashamed of his own family, and the way in which his father has made his money, and that’s always awfully snobbish. Why, to my thinking, the other brother, North, is much more a true gentleman. I despise people who are ashamed of their origin. It is nice to be a landed proprietor and a country gentleman, of course; but there’s no disgrace in honest trade. Why, three of our boys have had to go into business in some of its forms; but do you think they’d be ashamed of it, or that we should be ashamed of them? I should despise myself for ever if I were!” “Yes, I suppose he is rather ashamed of the works,” said Sheila slowly. “He never would have anything to do with them. I don’t quite know what he does want for himself. Sometimes he talks about the Bar, and sometimes the Church, and sometimes he thinks he’ll take up literature. I suppose he’s clever.” “The boys don’t think so; he only got a pass, you know. And I don’t think I like men to take to the Church just for a profession. I’ve got a brother a clergyman; but I know how he felt about it before he took Orders. He used sometimes to talk to me. He felt that he had been called; that is a very different thing from choosing for yourself, and shilly-shallying as Cyril is doing.” Sheila began to see that May, although not much older than herself, thought things out more deeply than she had ever done.