with a little more
animation. "One always means people, when one talks in that way. And
that is what I cannot quite understand. It seems to me that if I liked
people once I should always like them."

Her mother looked at her.

"Yes--perhaps you would," she said, and she relapsed into silence.

Clare's colour did not change. No particular person was in her thoughts,
and she had, as it were, given her own general and inexperienced opinion
of her own character, quite honestly and without affectation.

"I don't know which are the happier," said Mrs. Bowring at last, "the
people who change, or the people who can't."

"You mean faithful or unfaithful people, I suppose," observed the young
girl with grave innocence.

A very slight flush rose in Mrs. Bowring's thin cheeks, and the quiet
eyes grew suddenly hard, but Clare was busy with her work again and did
not see.

"Those are big words," said the older woman in a low voice.

"Well--yes--of course!" answered Clare. "So they ought to be! It is
always the main question, isn't it? Whether you can trust a person or
not, I mean."

"That is one question. The other is, whether the person deserves to be
trusted."

"Oh--it's the same thing!"

"Not exactly."

"You know what I mean, mother. Besides, I don't believe that any one who
can't trust is really to be trusted. Do you?"

"My dear Clare!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowring. "You can't put life into a
nutshell, like that!"

"No. I suppose not, though if a thing is true at all it must be always
true."

"Saving exceptions."

"Are there any exceptions to truth?" asked Clare incredulously. "Truth
isn't grammar--nor the British Constitution."

"No. But then, we don't know everything. What we call truth is what we
know. It is only what we know. All that we don't know, but which is, is
true, too--especially, all that we don't know about people with whom we
have to live."

"Oh--if people have secrets!" The young girl laughed idly. "But you and
I, for instance, mother--we have no secrets from each other, have we?
Well? Why should any two people who love each other have secrets? And if
they have none, why, then, they know all that there is to be known about
one another, and each trusts the other, and has a right to be trusted,
because everything is known--and everything is the whole truth. It seems
to me that is simple enough, isn't it?"

Mrs. Bowring laughed in her turn. It was rather a hard little laugh, but
Clare was used t