The horses were streaming with rain and the
carriage might have been a watercart.
When the caller, a rich lady, arrived in the drawing-room, polite wonder
was expressed at her boldness in coming out on such a dreadful day. She
seemed surprised. "Oh, but I came in a closed carriage," she explained.
This innocent remark opened the eyes of Miss Royden to the obliquity of
vision which is wrought, all unconsciously in many cases, by the power
of selfishness. The condition of her coachman and footman had never for
a moment presented itself to the lady's mind. Miss Royden made
acquaintance with righteous indignation. She became a reformer, and
something of a vehement reformer.
The drenched carriage coming through a splash of rain to her home will
remain for ever in her mind as an image of that spirit of selfishness
which in its manifold and subtle workings wrecks the beauty of human
existence.
Miss Royden, it should be said, had been prepared by a long experience
of pain to feel sympathy with the sufferings of other people. Her mind
had been lamentably ploughed up ever since the dawn of memory to receive
the divine grain of compassion.
At birth both her hips were dislocated, and lameness has been her lot
through life. Such was her spirit, however, that this saddening and
serious affliction, dogging her days and nights with pain, seldom
prevented her from joining in the vigorous games and sports of the
Royden family.
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