ter to make no profession."

"Better than what? What is the alternative?"

"O, you know. Now you are catechizing me. It is better to make no
profession, than to make it and not live up to it."

"I understand. That is to say, it is wicked to pay your debts with
counterfeit notes, so it is better not to pay them at all."

"Nonsense, Basil! I am not talking of paying debts."

"But I am."

"What have debts got to do with it?"

"I beg your pardon. I understood you to declare your disapprobation of
false money, and your preference for another sort of dishonesty."

"Dishonest, Basil! there is no dishonesty."

"By what name do you call it?"

He was speaking gravely, though with a surface pleasantry; both gravity
and pleasantry were of a very winning kind. Diana looked on and
listened, much interested, as well as amused; Gertrude puzzled and
impatient, though unable to resist the attraction. She hesitated, and
surveyed him.

"There can't be dishonesty unless where one owes something."

"Precisely"--he said, glancing at her. His hands were busy at the time
with a supple twig he had cut from one of the trees, which he was
trimming of its leaves and buds.

"What do I owe?" said the beauty, throwing her tresses of hair off from
her shoulders.

He waited a bit, the one lady looking defiant, the other curious; and
then he said, with a sort of gentle simplicity that was at the same
time uncompromising,

"'The Lord hath made all things for himself.'"

Gertrude's foot patted the turf; after a minute she answered,

"Of course you say that because you are a clergyman."

"No, I don't. I am stating a fact, which I thought it likely you had
forgotten."

Gertrude stood up, as if she had got enough of the conversation. Diana
wished for another word.

"It is a fact," she said; "but what have we to do with it?"

"Only to let the Lord have his own," said the minister with a full look
at her.

"How do you mean, Mr. Masters? I don't understand."

Gertrude was marching over the grass, leading to the house. The other
two followed.

"When you have contrived and made a thing, you reckon it is your own,
don't you? and when you have bought something, you think it is at your
disposal?"

"Certainly; but"--

"'_You_ were bought with a price.'"

"Of course, God has a right to dispose of us," Diana assented in an "of
course" way.

"_Does_ he?" said the minister. Then, seeing her puzzled expression, he
went on--"He cannot