"Why not let Susan go by herself?" said Emmie, grasping eagerly at an idea which afforded a hope of escape from work which she disliked and dreaded. "Susan has been trained for a lady's-maid, and not for a Bible-woman," said Bruce; "she is not fitted to act as your substitute, useful as she may prove as your helper. Nor would Susan be as readily welcomed amongst our tenants as would be a real lady, their landlord's only daughter. Your position and education, Emmie, give you advantages which Susan would not possess; they are talents intrusted to you, which it would be a sin to bury." Emmie heaved a disconsolate sigh. "Let me put the subject in a clearer light," pursued Bruce. "What would you call the conduct of one of your servants who should, without your leave, ask another person to do the work which she herself had been engaged to perform?" "I should call it indolence," replied Emmie. Her brother added the word "presumption." "And if a soldier on the eve of a battle should hire a substitute to fight in his stead," continued Bruce, "what would such an act appear to his comrades and captain?" "Cowardice," answered Emmie. "There have been instances," said Bruce, "of pilgrimages and penances, imposed on the wealthy, _being performed by proxy_! A poor man endured, for the sake of money, what the rich man believed to be the penalty of his own sins. What were such penances or pilgrimages, Emmie?" "A mockery," was the faltered reply. "And if in man's sight there are duties which we cannot make over to others without presumption, cowardice, and rendering the performance of them a solemn mockery, think you that the Divine Master looks with favour on services done _by proxy_? He intends the rich to come in contact with their poorer brethren. He claims from us not merely the money which we can easily give, but the words of our lips, the strength of our limbs, the thoughts of our brains, the time which is far more precious than gold. The work which your Master gives you to do, the special work, no substitute can perform." "Oh! I wish with all my heart and soul that we had never left Summer Villa, never come to Myst Hall!" exclaimed Emmie. Bruce was a little disappointed that such an exclamation should be the only reply to his serious words. "You would surely not desire to pass through life putting aside every cross but the fanciful ornament which it is the fashion to wear!" he remarked with slight severity in his manner. "You have given yourself, body and soul, to a heavenly Master,--is it for Him or for you to choose your work? Is it a very hard command if He say to you now, 'Work for one half-hour each day in My vineyard'?" "I would rather work for six hours with my fingers quietly in my own room," murmured Emmie.