d to take poison; the remarkable law of nature in such
cases being, that it is always unfortunate _you_ who are poisoned, and
not the person who gives you the dose. It is a very strange law, but it
_is_ a law. Nature merely sees to the carrying out of the normal
operation of arsenic. She never troubles herself to ask who gave it you.
So also you may be starved to death, morally as well as physically, by
other people's faults. You are, on the whole, very good children sitting
here to-day;--do you think that your goodness comes all by your own
contriving? or that you are gentle and kind because your dispositions
are naturally more angelic than those of the poor girls who are playing,
with wild eyes, on the dustheaps in the alleys of our great towns; and
who will one day fill their prisons,--or, better, their graves? Heaven
only knows where they, and we who have cast them there, shall stand at
last. But the main judgment question will be, I suppose, for all of us,
'Did you keep a good heart through it?' What you were, others may answer
for;--what you tried to be, you must answer for, yourself. Was the heart
pure and true--tell us that?

And so we come back to your sorrowful question, Lucilla, which I put
aside a little ago. You would be afraid to answer that your heart _was_
pure and true, would not you?

LUCILLA. Yes, indeed, sir.

L. Because you have been taught that it is all evil--'only evil
continually.' Somehow, often as people say that, they never seem, to me,
to believe it? Do you really believe it?

LUCILLA. Yes, sir; I hope so.

L. That you have an entirely bad heart?

LUCILLA (_a little uncomfortable at the substitution of the monosyllable
for the dissyllable, nevertheless persisting in her orthodoxy_). Yes,
sir.

L. Florrie, I am sure you are tired; I never like you to stay when you
are tired; but, you know, you must not play with the kitten while we're
talking.

FLORRIE. Oh! but I'm not tired; and I'm only nursing her. She'll be
asleep in my lap directly.

L. Stop! that puts me in mind of something I had to show you, about
minerals that are like hair. I want a hair out of Tittie's tail.

FLORRIE (_quite rude, in her surprise, even to the point of repeating
expressions_). Out of Tittie's tail!

L. Yes; a brown one: Lucilla, you can get at the tip of it nicely, under
Florrie's arm; just pull one out for me.

LUCILLA. Oh! but, sir, it will hurt her so!

L. Never mind; she can't scratch you while