“You are the fresh air, and Mrs. Sterling is the quiet sunshine that does the work, I fancy.  David only digs about the roots.”

“Thank you for my share of the compliment; but why say ‘only digs’?  That is a most important part of the work:  I’m afraid you don’t appreciate David.”

“Oh, yes, I do; but he rather aggravates me sometimes,” said Christie, laughing, as she put a particularly big berry in the green plate to atone for her frankness.

“How?” asked Mr. Power, interested in these little revelations.

“Well, he won’t be ambitious.  I try to stir him up, for he has talents; I’ve found that out:  but he won’t seem to care for any thing but watching over his mother, reading his old books, and making flowers bloom double when they ought to be single.”

“There are worse ambitions than those, Christie.  I know many a man who would be far better employed in cherishing a sweet old woman, studying Plato, and doubling the beauty of a flower, than in selling principles for money, building up a cheap reputation that dies with him, or chasing pleasures that turn to ashes in his mouth.”

“Yes, sir; but isn’t it natural for a young man to have some personal aim or aspiration to live for?  If David was a weak or dull man I could understand it; but I seem to feel a power, a possibility for something higher and better than any thing I see, and this frets me.  He is so good, I want him to be great also in some way.”

“A wise man says, ’The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.’  I think David one of the most ambitious men I ever knew, because at thirty he has discovered this truth, and taken it to heart.  Many men can be what the world calls great:  very few men are what God calls good.  This is the harder task to choose, yet the only success that satisfies, the only honor that outlives death.  These faithful lives, whether seen of men or hidden in corners, are the salvation of the world, and few of us fail to acknowledge it in the hours when we are brought close to the heart of things, and see a little as God sees.”

Christie did not speak for a moment:  Mr. Power’s voice had been so grave, and his words so earnest that she could not answer lightly, but sat turning over the new thoughts in her mind.  Presently she said, in a penitent but not quite satisfied tone: 

“Of course you are right, sir.  I’ll try not to care for the outward and visible signs of these hidden virtues; but I’m afraid I still shall have a hankering for the worldly honors that are so valued by most people.”

“‘Success and glory are the children of hard work and God’s favor,’ according to Æschylus, and you will find he was right.  David got a heavy blow some years ago as I told you, I think; and he took it hard, but it did not spoil him:  it made a man of him; and, if I am not much mistaken, he will yet do something to be proud of, though the world may never hear of it.”