MV LADY BOUNTIFUL.,

Taranaki Daily News, 4 September 1926, Page 18

MV LADY BOUNTIFUL.,

FROM A WOMAN’S ARMCBIAIR. (By Mavis Clare.) One of tlie most beautiful givers I know happens to be possessed of a generous share of this world’s goods. But it is not her lavish dispensation of gifts to others less prodigally endowed that endears her to the hearts of the takers. It is her genius for making the takers —givers, too. She does it in charming unobtrusive little ways. But they make all the world of difference to the feeling with which her largess is accepted. This Lady Bountiful makes a delicate

point of asking some little favour in return, without letting it appear that it is a carefully thought out quid pro quo gesture to allay the little demons of shrinking pride. Something well within the coinpass of the taker whom she converts into ft giver. Something, nevertheless, that will serve to eliminate that “beholden” feeling which it is only poor human nature to resent. Being a true Lady Bountiful, she knows, with all the sympathetic perception of gentle insight, all about that, wretched “beholden” feeling! She knows that folk who are struggling to make both ends meet are prone to hesitate miserably ere they proffer what humble little return

they can for bounty beyond their sphere. So she craves her pretty favours of those she lias royally befriended. She asks the girl who is clever with her fingers to make her a boudoir cap, or a cretonne-covered blotter- for her writingdesk, carefully going into colour schemes with which they must tone, so as to emphasise the subtle eagerness of her request. She begs of the little housewife a certain home-made cake; and asks her young husband, who is a bit of a genius at wood-carving, to fit her up a dainty bookshelf in her boudoir, casually intimating that she “happens” to have the necessary wood in the house. She drops in on the business girl, whom she has entertained to dinner and the theatre many a time amt oft, and

chooses a “slack” time in the afternoon so that she may implore a cup of tea. taking it with a emile of relief delightfully heart-satisfying because it is real. Even the kiddie she sent away to a convalescent home is apprised of her Lady Bountiful’s crying need of kettleholders, in the letter accompanying the box of pieces that also contains a doll and picture-book. It is lovely to have something “real” to do; lovelier still to behold her handiwork, in due course, in her Lady Bountiful’s pretty kitchen. Oh! that house of hers! If inanimate objects could speak, what tales they could tell! Tales of ft heart even more capacious than the purse so freely opened; tales of one. who takes as beautifully as she gives. Such giving, such taking, i« never marred by reciprocity bogeys of inequality. There is no orthodox balancing of the budget of human love.