and that sort of thing. I knew you would like to meet her again because
you are philanthropic, too. She hardly thought she could spare the time
to come, but she thought she would go back fresher if the wail were out
of her ears for a week. The wail! Isn't it dreadful? I feel we ought to
do more than we do, don't you?"

"We ought, indeed."

"But then, you see, as a married woman, I can't leave my husband and
child and bury myself in the East End, can I?"

"Of course not. But surely it is an understood thing that marriage
exempts women from all impersonal duties."

"Yes, that is just it. How well you put it! But others could. I often
wonder why, after writing _The Idyll_, Hester never goes near East
London. I should have gone straight off, and have cast in my lot with
them if I had been in her place."

"Do you ever find people do what you would have done if you had been in
their place?"

"No, never. They don't seem to see it. It's a thing I can't understand
the way people don't act up to their convictions. And I do know, though
I would not tell Hester so for worlds, that the fact that she goes on
living comfortably in the country after bringing out that book makes
thoughtful people, not me, of course, but other earnest-minded people,
think she is a humbug."

"It would--naturally," said Rachel.

"Well, now I am glad you agree with me, for I said something of the same
kind to Mr. Scarlett last night, and he could not see it. He's rather
obtuse. I dare say you remember him?"

"Perfectly."

"I don't care about him, he is so superficial, and Miss Barker says he
is very lethargic in conversation. I asked him because--don't breathe a
word of it--but because, as a married woman, one ought to help others,
and--do you remember how he stood up for Hester that night in London?"

"For her book, you mean."

"Well, it's all one. Men are men, my dear. Let me tell you he would
never have done that if he had not been in love with her."

"Do you mean that men never defend obvious truths unless they are in
love?"

"Now you are pretending to misunderstand me," said Sybell, joyously,
making her little squirrel face into a becoming pout. "But it's no use
trying to take me in. And it's coming right. He's there at this moment!"

"At the Vicarage?"

"Where else? I asked him to go. I urged him. I said I felt sure she
expected him. One must help on these things."

"But if he is obtuse and lethargic and superficial, is he likely