t her."

"It was the great time of Dora's life. I wished her to have all the
glory of it."

"All her own share--that was right. All of your share, also--that was as
wrong as it could be."

"Clifton is yachting, Royal and I had a little misunderstanding, and
Dick Potter is too effusive."

"But Dick's effusiveness would have been a good thing for Fred's
effusiveness. Two men can't go on a complimentary ran-tan at the same
table. They freeze one another out. That goes without saying. But Dora's
indiscretions are none of your business while she is under her father's
roof; and I don't know if she hadn't a friend in the world, if they
would be your business. I have always been against people trying to do
the work of THEM that are above us. We are told THEY seek and THEY
save, and it's likely they will look after Dora in spite of her being so
unknowing of herself as to marry a priest in a surplice, when a fool in
motley would have been more like the thing."

"I don't want to quarrel with Dora. After all, I like her. We have been
friends a long time."

"Well, then, don't make an enemy of her. One hundred friends are too few
against one enemy. One hundred friends will wish you well, and one enemy
will DO you ill. God love you, child! Take the world as you find it.
Only God can make it any better. When is this blessed wedding to come
off?"

"In two weeks. You got cards, did you not?"

"I believe I did. They don't matter. Let Dora and her flirtations alone,
unless you set your own against them. Like cures like. If the priest
sees nothing wrong----"

"He thinks all she does is perfect."

"I dare say. Priests are a soft lot, they'll believe anything. He's
love-blind at present. Some day, like the prophet of Pethor, [1] he will
get his eyes opened. As for Fred Mostyn, I shall have a good deal to say
about him by and by, so I'll say nothing now."

[Footnote 1: One of the Hebrew prophets.]

"You promised, grandmother, not to talk to me any more about Fred."

"It was a very inconsiderate promise, a very irrational promise! I am
sorry I made it--and I don't intend to keep it."

"Well, it takes two to hold a conversation, grandmother."

"To be sure it does. But if I talk to you, I hope to goodness you will
have the decency to answer me. I wouldn't believe anything different."
And she looked into Ethel's face with such a smiling confidence in her
good will and obedience, that Ethel could only laugh and give her twenty
k