him so much. But Falconer could be indifferent to
much dislike, and therein I know some men that envy him.

When he saw, however, that Lady Georgina was trying to swallow a lump in
her throat, he hastened to add,

'I have only relations with individuals--none with classes.'

Lady Georgina gathered her failing courage. 'Then there is the more hope
for me,' she said. 'Surely there are things a woman might be useful
in that a man cannot do so well--especially if she would do as she was
told, Mr. Falconer?'

He looked at her, inquiring of her whole person what numen abode in the
fane. She misunderstood the look.

'I could dress very differently, you know. I will be a sister of
charity, if you like.'

'And wear a uniform?--as if the god of another world wanted to make
proselytes or traitors in this! No, Lady Georgina, it was not of a dress
so easily altered that I was thinking; it was of the habit, the dress of
mind, of thought, of feeling. When you laid aside your beautiful dress,
could you avoid putting on the garment of condescension, the most
unchristian virtue attributed to Deity or saint? Could you--I must be
plain with you, Lady Georgina, for this has nothing to do with the forms
of so-called society--could your temper endure the mortifications of
low opposition and misrepresentation of motive and end--which, avoid
intrusion as you might, would yet force themselves on your perception?
Could you be rudely, impudently thwarted by the very persons for whom
you were spending your strength and means, and show no resentment? Could
you make allowances for them as for your own brothers and sisters, your
own children?'

Lady Georgina was silent.

'I shall seem to glorify myself, but at that risk I must put the reality
before you.--Could you endure the ugliness both moral and physical which
you must meet at every turn? Could you look upon loathsomeness, not
merely without turning away in disgust, and thus wounding the very heart
you would heal, but without losing your belief in the Fatherhood of God,
by losing your faith in the actual blood-relationship to yourself of
these wretched beings? Could you believe in the immortal essence
hidden under all this garbage--God at the root of it all? How would the
delicate senses you probably inherit receive the intrusions from which
they could not protect themselves? Would you be in no danger of finding
personal refuge in the horrid fancy, that these are but the slimy
borders o