'I thought narrowness of mind consisted in thinking your own way the
only right one,' said Isabel.

'Every one says so,' said Mary, 'and that is why he says it takes
strength of mind to be narrow-minded. Is not the real evil, the
judging people harshly, because their ways are not the same; not the
being sure that the one way is the only right! Others may be better
than ourselves, and may be led right in spite of their error, but
surely we are not to think all paths alike--

'And is that Lord Fitzjocelyn's definition of a narrow mind?' said
Isabel. 'It sounds like faith and love. Are you sure you did not make
it yourself, Miss Ponsonby?'

'I could not,' said Mary, blushing, as she remembered one Sunday
evening when he had said something to that effect, which had insensibly
overthrown the theory in which she had been bred up, namely, that all
the sincere were right, and yet that, practically every one was to be
censured, who did not act exactly like Aunt Melicent.

She rose to take leave, and Clara clung to her, emerging from the shade
of her cabinet with colour little mitigated since her disappearance.
James would have come with them, but was detained by Lady Conway for a
few moments longer than it took them to put on their shawls; and Clara
would not wait. She dragged Mary down the steps into the darkness, and
groaned out, 'O Mary, he can never speak to me again!'

'My dear! he will not recollect it. It was very awkward, but new
places and new people often do make us forget ourselves.'

'Everybody saw, everybody heard! O, I shall never bear to meet one of
them again!'

'I think very few saw or heard--' began Mary.

'He did! I did! That's enough! The rest is nothing! I have been as
bad as any one at school! I shall never hold up my head there again as
I have done, and Louis! Oh!'

'Dear child, it will not be remembered. You only forgot how tall you
were, and that you were not at home. He knows you too well to care.'

James shouted from behind to know why they had not been let into the
house; and as Clara rushed in at the door and he walked on with Mary to
leave her at home and fetch his grandmother, who had been spending the
evening with Mrs. Ponsonby, he muttered, 'I don't know which is most
intolerable! He neglects her, talks what, if it be not nonsense, might
as well be; and as if she were not ready enough to misunderstand,
Sydney Calcott must needs thrust in his wits to embroil her
und