merged into the quiet stream of a certain high reasonableness, she
presented her most graceful aspect; she had a tone of softness and
sympathy, a gentle dignity, a serenity of wisdom, which sealed the
appreciation of those who knew her well enough to like her, and which
always impressed Verena as something almost august. Such moods, however,
were not often revealed to the public at large; they belonged to Miss
Chancellor's very private life. One of them had possession of her at
present, and she went on to explain the inconsequence which had puzzled
her friend with the same quiet clearness, the detachment from error, of
a woman whose self-scrutiny has been as sharp as her deflexion.

"Don't think me capricious if I say I would rather trust you without a
pledge. I owe you, I owe every one, an apology for my rudeness and
fierceness at your mother's. It came over me--just seeing those young
men--how exposed you are; and the idea made me (for the moment) frantic.
I see your danger still, but I see other things too, and I have
recovered my balance. You must be safe, Verena--you must be saved; but
your safety must not come from your having tied your hands. It must come
from the growth of your perception; from your seeing things, of
yourself, sincerely and with conviction, in the light in which I see
them; from your feeling that for your work your freedom is essential,
and that there is no freedom for you and me save in religiously _not_
doing what you will often be asked to do--and I never!" Miss Chancellor
brought out these last words with a proud jerk which was not without its
pathos. "Don't promise, don't promise!" she went on. "I would far rather
you didn't. But don't fail me--don't fail me, or I shall die!"

Her manner of repairing her inconsistency was altogether feminine: she
wished to extract a certainty at the same time that she wished to
deprecate a pledge, and she would have been delighted to put Verena into
the enjoyment of that freedom which was so important for her by
preventing her exercising it in a particular direction. The girl was now
completely under her influence; she had latent curiosities and
distractions--left to herself, she was not always thinking of the
unhappiness of women; but the touch of Olive's tone worked a spell, and
she found something to which at least a portion of her nature turned
with eagerness in her companion's wider knowledge, her elevation of
view. Miss Chancellor was historic and phi