say I,
as pay dues to the priest and take thought for thine own soul."

The speaker was Mr Justice Roberts, and he sat at supper in his
brother's house, one of a small family party, which consisted, beside
the brothers, of their sister, Mistress Collenwood, Mistress Grena
Holland, Gertrude, and Pandora. The speech was characteristic of the
speaker. The Justice was by no means a bad man, as men go--and all of
them do not go very straight in the right direction--but he made one
mistake which many are making in our own day; he valued peace more
highly than truth. His decalogue was a monologue, consisting but of one
commandment: Do your duty. What a man's duty was, the Justice did not
pause to define. Had he been required to do so, his dissection of that
difficult subject would probably have run in three grooves--go to
church; give alms; keep out of quarrels.

"It were verily good world, Master Justice, wherein every man should do
his duty," was the answer of Mistress Grena, delivered in that slightly
prim and didactic fashion which was characteristic of her.

"What is duty?" concisely asked Mistress Collenwood, who was by some ten
years the elder of her brothers, and therefore the eldest of the
company.

Gertrude's eyes were dancing with amusement; Pandora only looked
interested.

"Duty," said Mr Roberts, the host, "is that which is due."

"To whom?" inquired his sister.

"To them unto whom he oweth it," was the reply; "first, to God; after
Him, to all men."

"Which of us doth that?" said Mistress Collenwood softly, looking round
the table.

Mistress Grena shook her head in a way which said, "Very few--not I."

Had Gertrude lived three hundred years later, she would have said what
now she only thought--"I am sure _I_ do my duty." But in 1557 young
ladies were required to "hear, see, and say nought," and for one of them
to join unasked in the conversation of her elders would have been held
to be shockingly indecorous. The rule for girls' behaviour was too
strict in that day; but if a little of it could be infused into the very
lax code of the present time, when little misses offer their opinions on
subjects of which they know nothing, and unblushingly differ from, or
even contradict their mothers, too often without rebuke, it would be a
decided improvement on social manners.

"Which of the folks in these parts be not doing their duty?" asked Mr
Roberts of his brother.

"You know Benden of Briton's Mea