heard it remarked on all sides that "town was very
empty." To her it seemed full to overflowing, and more like one of the
anthills that were Peter's abhorrence in the garden than anything else.
The continuous stream of human beings flowing in all directions was a
never-ending source of wonder to her.

"Every single one of these people must have a story, you know," she said
to the others one day. "Some are good and some are wicked, I suppose."

"I think they're all much of a muchness," replied Maud thoughtfully.
"Good people can be bad, and bad people can be good. The best nurse I
ever had turned out to be a thief, and I was so sorry when she went
away. I tell you I loved that thief. You've no idea what a good, kind
nurse she was; and it was found that she stole for the sake of somebody
else who was poor."

"Well, but it can't be right to steal," argued Blanche.

"No, of course not, silly. But what I mean is that even wicked people
may have some good in them. I've always thought that there ought to be
something between sheep and goats--not quite so good and not quite so
bad as either; or they might have points, such as length of horn, or
silkiness of coat and thickness of fleece, and so on."

"Would an extra fine goat be an extra wicked person, or a shade better
than an ordinary goat?" asked Marjory, laughing.

"Of course he would be better. A wretched, thin, mangy animal would be
the worst, and they would gradually go on improving till the best goat
was just the next thing to the worst sheep." Maud laughed.

Blanche was rather shocked. "I don't think you ought to make fun of
those things, Maud," she said, reddening.

"I'm not making fun, my serious little cousin. I only mean to show that
I think it's very hard to decide where the good begins and the bad
leaves off, and that everybody has some of each. You see, I'm older than
you, and I do think sometimes, although you might not guess it to look
at me--eh?"

"Miss Waspe quoted some rather nice lines to us one day," said Marjory.
"They were by Robert Louis Stevenson, I think. I don't know if I can
remember them properly, but they were something like this,--

'There's so much bad in the best of us,
And so much good in the most of us,
That it hardly becomes any of us
To talk evil of the rest of us.'"

"Awfully jolly," agreed Maud. "I couldn't have put it better myself;
it's exactly what I think."

The passing crowd was a never-failing source of inter