r, miles distant, the
domestic comments being made on her innocence; and the story it would
be--"She thinks of no possible danger but from the sun."

A little forcing of her innocence now was necessary as an opiate for her
conscience. She was doing what her conscience could only pardon on
the plea of her extreme innocence. The sisters, and the fashion at
Brookfield, permitted the assumption, and exaggerated it willingly. It
chanced, however, that Adela had reason to feel discontented. It was a
breach of implied contract, she thought, that Cornelia should, as she
did only yesterday, tell her that she had seen Edward Buxley in the
woods, and that she was of opinion that the air of the woods was bad
for her. Not to see would have been the sisterly obligation, in Adela's
idea--especially when seeing embraced things that no loving sister
should believe.

Bear in mind that we are sentimentalists. The eye is our servant, not
our master; and--so are the senses generally. We are not bound to accept
more than we choose from them. Thus we obtain delicacy; and thus, as you
will perceive, our civilization, by the aid of the sentimentalists, has
achieved an effective varnish. There, certainly, to the vulgar, mind a
tail is visible. The outrageous philosopher declares vehemently that no
beast of the field or the forest would own such a tail. (His meaning is,
that he discerns the sign of the animal slinking under the garb of the
stately polished creature. I have all the difficulty in the world to
keep him back and let me pursue my course.) These philosophers are a
bad-mannered body. Either in opposition, or in the support of them,
I maintain simply that the blinking sentimentalist helps to make
civilization what it is, and civilization has a great deal of merit.

"Did you not leave your parasol behind you at Ipley?" said Adela, as she
met Cornelia in the afternoon.

Cornelia coloured. Her pride supported her, and she violated fine shades
painfully in her response: "Mr. Barrett left me there. Is that your
meaning?"

Adela was too much shocked to note the courageousness of the reply.
"Well! if all we do is to come into broad daylight!" was her horrified
mental ejaculation.

The veil of life was about to be lifted for these ladies. They found
Arabella in her room, crying like an unchastened school-girl; and their
first idea was one of intense condemnation--fresh offences on the part
of Mrs. Chump being conjectured. Little by little