it sinful--even more selfishly sinful than
my fault, because it would hurt the careers of Jacky and Charles; and
that, as you know, he would never forgive."

"Who are you, to be lecturing me?"

"I am your sister, who has done wrong: I have tasted bitter fruit and
must go eating it all my life. But it is fruit of knowledge--ah,
listen, Emmy! If you do this and become famous, the greater your
fame, the greater the injury; or so father would hold it, and perhaps
our brothers too. Hetty can be hidden and forgotten in a far country
parish. But can Jacky become a bishop, having an actress for
sister?"

"You are sudden in this thought for your brothers."

"It is not of them I am thinking. I say that if you succeed you will
lose father's forgiveness and always carry with you this sorrowful
knowledge. Yet I would bid you go and do it; for to be great is
worth much cost of sorrow, and sorrow might even increase your
greatness. But have you that strength? And if you should not
succeed?--We know nothing of the world: all our thoughts of it come
out of books and dreaming. You imagine yourself treading the boards
and holding all hearts captive with your voice. So I used to imagine
myself slaying dragons. So, only yesterday, I believed--"

She sat erect with a shiver. "To wake and find all your dreams
changed to squalor, and for you no turning back! Have you the
strength, Emmy--to go forward and change that squalor back again by
sheer force into beautiful dreams? Have you the strength?"
She gazed at Emilia and added musingly, "No, you have not the
strength. You will stay on here in the cage, an obedient woman, your
talent repressed to feed the future of those grand brothers of ours
who take all we give, yet cannot help us one whit. They take it
innocently; they do not know; and they are dear good fellows.
But they cannot help. I only have done what may injure them--though
I do not think it will: and when father came along the path just now,
he was thinking of them rather than of me--of me only as I might
injure them."

She was right indeed. Mr. Wesley had left the house thinking of her:
but a few steps had called up the faces of his sons, and by habit,
since he thought of them always on his walks. His studies put aside,
to think of them was his one recreation. Coming upon Hetty, he had
felt himself taken at unawares, and retreated.

"--And when he turned away," Hetty went on, "I understood. And I
felt s