d so, when Mrs Rookwood asked, I so hoped Grandmother would let me
go. And I did enjoy the apple-gathering in the garden, and the games
afterward in the hall. But when we sat down, and girls came up and
talked to me, and I saw what they had inside their hearts--for if it had
not been in their hearts, it would not have come on their tongues--Aunt
Edith, I hope I shall never, never, _never_ have anything more to do
with the world! I'd rather peel onions and scrub tiles every day of my
life than live with people, and perhaps get like them, who could call my
dear old Grandmother `Knitting-pins' in scorn, and tell God Himself that
they only wanted to think of Him on Sundays. That world's another
world, and I don't belong to it, and please, I'll keep out of it!"

"Amen, and Amen!" said Aunt Edith. "My Lettice, let us abide in the
world where God is King and Father, and Sun, and Water of Life. May
that other world where Satan rules ever be another and a strange world
to thee, wherein thou shalt feel thyself a traveller and a stranger. My
child, there is very much merriment which hath nought to do with
happiness, and very much happiness which hath nought to do with mirth.
'Tis one thing to shut ourselves from God's world which He made, and
quite another to keep our feet away from Satan's world which he hath
ruined. When God saith, `Love not the world,' He means not, Love not
flowers, and song-birds, and bright colours, and sunset skies, and the
innocent laughter of little children. Those belong to His world; and
'tis only as we take them out thereof, and hand them unto Satan, and
they get into the Devil's world, that they become evil and hurtful unto
us. Satan hath ruined, and will yet, so far as he may, all the good
things of God; and beware of the most innocent-seeming thing so soon as
thou shalt see his touch, upon it. Thank God, my darling, that He
suffered thee not to shut thine eyes thereto! Was Aubrey there,
Lettice?"

"He came but late, Aunt, and therefore it was, I suppose, that as it
seemed, he had no list to come with me. He said he might look in,
perchance, at after."

"And Mr Tom Rookwood?"

"Ay, he was there, though I saw scarce anything of him but just at
first."

Edith was privately glad to hear it. She had been a little afraid of
designs upon Lettice from that quarter.

"Aunt, was it not rude to give nicknames?"

"Very rude, and very uncomely, Lettice."

"I thought it was horrid!" said L