itself that is paved with them, as people say so often.
You can't pave the bottomless pit; but you may the road to it.

MAY. Well, but if people do as well as they can see how, surely that is
the right for them, isn't it?

L. No, May, not a bit of it; right is right, and wrong is wrong. It is
only the fool who does wrong, and says he 'did it for the best.' And if
there's one sort of person in the world that the Bible speaks harder of
than another, it is fools. Their particular and chief way of saying
'There is no God' is this, of declaring that whatever their 'public
opinion' may be, is right: and that God's opinion is of no consequence.

MAY. But surely nobody can always know what is right?

L. Yes, you always can, for to-day; and if you do what you see of it
to-day, you will see more of it, and more clearly, to-morrow. Here, for
instance, you children are at school, and have to learn French, and
arithmetic, and music, and several other such things. That is your
'right' for the present; the 'right' for us, your teachers, is to see
that you learn as much as you can, without spoiling your dinner, your
sleep, or your play; and that what you do learn, you learn well. You all
know when you learn with a will, and when you dawdle. There's no doubt
of conscience about that, I suppose?

VIOLET. No; but if one wants to read an amusing book, instead of
learning one's lesson?

L. You don't call that a 'question,' seriously, Violet? You are then
merely deciding whether you will resolutely do wrong or not.

MARY. But, in after life, how many fearful difficulties may arise,
however one tries to know or to do what is right!

L. You are much too sensible a girl, Mary, to have felt that, whatever
you may have seen. A great many of young ladies' difficulties arise from
their falling in love with a wrong person: but they have no business to
let themselves fall in love, till they know he is the right one.

DORA. How many thousands ought he to have a year?

L. (_disdaining reply_). There are, of course, certain crises of fortune
when one has to take care of oneself, and mind shrewdly what one is
about. There is never any real doubt about the path, but you may have to
walk very slowly.

MARY. And if one is forced to do a wrong thing by some one who has
authority over you?

L. My dear, no one can be forced to do a wrong thing, for the guilt is
in the will: but you may any day be forced to do a fatal thing, as you
might be force