A young girl naturally has quick sympathies, and all the influences of Laura's life had been gentle and humane. Her aunt's words speedily led her to regard Haldane as an "interesting case," a sort of fever patient who was approaching the crisis of his disease. Curling down on the floor, and leaning her arms on her aunt's lap, she looked up with a face full of solicitude as she asked: "And don't you think you can save him? Please don't give up trying."
"I like the expression of your face now," said Mrs. Arnot, stroking the abundant tresses, that were falling loosely from the girl's head, "for in it I catch a glimpse of the divine image. Many think of God as looking down angrily and frowningly upon the foolish and wayward; but I see in the solicitude of your face a faint reflection of the 'Not willing that any should perish' which it ever seems to me is the expression of His."
"Laura," said she abruptly, after a moment, "did any one ever tell you that you were growing up very pretty?"
"No, auntie," said the girl, blushing and laughing.
"Mr. Haldane told you so this evening."
"O auntie, you are mistaken; he could not have been so rude."
"He did not make a set speech to that effect, my dear, but he told you so by his eyes and manner, only you are such an innocent home child that you did not notice. But when you go into society you will be told this fact so often that you will be compelled to heed it, and will soon learn the whole language of flattery, spoken and unspoken. Perhaps I had, better forewarn you a little, and so forearm you. What are you going to do with your beauty?"
"Why, auntie, how funny you talk! What should I do with it, granting that it has any existence save in your fond eyes?"
"Suppose you use it to make men better, instead of to make them merely admire you. One can't be a belle very long at best, and of all the querulous, discontented, and disagreeable people that I have met, superannuated belles, who could no longer obtain their revenue of flattery, were the worst. They were impoverished, indeed. If you do as I suggest, you will have much that is pleasant to think about when you come to be as old as I am. Perhaps you can do more for young Haldane than I can."
"Now, auntie, what can I do?"
"That which nearly all women can do: be kind and winning; make our safe, cosey parlor so attractive that he will not go out evenings to places which tend to destroy him. You feel an interest in him; show it. Ask him about his business, and get him to explain it to you. Suggest that if you were a man you would like to master your work, and become eminent in it. Show by your manner and by words, if occasion offers, that you love and revere all that is sacred, pure, and Christian. Laura, innocent dove as you are, you know that many women beguile men to ruin with smiles. Men can be beguiled from ruin with smiles. Indeed, I think multitudes are permitted to go to destruction because women are so unattractive, so absorbed in themselves and their nerves. If mothers and wives, maidens and old maids, would all commence playing the agreeable to the men of their household and circle, not for the sake of a few compliments, but for the purpose of luring them from evil and making them better, the world would improve at once."