When the first shock was over, Lesley began to
reflect that her own world had been a narrow one, and that possibly
there were others equally good. And this was a great step to a girl who
had been educated in a French convent school.

Part of Lesley's inheritance from her father, and a part of which she
was quite unconscious, was a singularly fair mind. She could judge and
balance and discriminate with an impartiality which was far beyond the
power of the ordinary woman. Being young her impartiality was now and
then disturbed by little gusts of passion and prejudice; but the faculty
was there to be strengthened by every opportunity of exercising it. This
faculty had been stirred within her when Lady Alice first told her of
her father's existence; but she had tried to stifle it as an accursed
thing. She held it wicked to be anything but a partizan. And now it had
revived within her, and was urging her to form no rash conclusions, to
be careful in her thoughts about her new acquaintances, to weigh her
opinions before expressing them. And all this in spite of a native fire
and vivacity of temperament which might have led her into difficulties
but for the counterbalancing power of judgment which she had inherited
from the father whom she had been taught to despise.

So although she raged with all her young heart and strength against Mr.
Kenyon's construction of her feelings and motives, she had the good
sense to ask herself whether there had not been some truth in what he
said. After all, what did she know of this strange father of hers, whose
every action she judged so harshly? She had heard her mother's story,
which certainly placed him in a very unamiable light. But many years had
gone by since Lady Alice left her husband, and a man's character might
be modified in a dozen years or so. Lesley was willing to go so far. He
might even be repentant for the past. Then Sister Rose's words came back
to her. She, Lesley, might become the instrument of reconciliation
between two who had been long divided!

The color flashed into her face and slowly faded away. What chance had
she of gaining her father's ear? True, she could descant by the hour
together, if she had the opportunity, on Lady Alice's sweetness and
goodness; but when could she get the opportunity of speaking about them
to him? He looked on her with an eye of mistrust, almost of contempt.
She had been brought up in a school of thought which he despised. How
far away f