an but try, and if we fail altogether, there is still
virtue in every futile effort toward the right."

Mary bent her head as she walked along in thought.

"What you have said is the only approach to a rule for knowing and
doing the right I have ever heard. Now what do you think of me as a
flatterer? But it will do no good; the bad is in me too strong; it
always does itself before I can apply any rule, or even realize what
is coming." And again she shook her head with a bewitching little look
of trouble.

"Pardon me, your highness; but there is no bad _in_ you. It has been
put _on_ you by others, and is all on the outside; there is none of it
in your heart at all. That evil which you think comes out of you,
simply falls from you; your heart is all right, or I have greatly
misjudged you." He was treating her almost as if she were a child.

"I fear, Master Brandon, you are the most adroit flatterer of all,"
said Mary, shaking her head and looking up at him with a side glance,
"people have deluged me with all kinds of flattery--I have the
different sorts listed and labeled--but no one has ever gone to the
extravagant length of calling me good. Perhaps they think I do not
care for that; but I like it best. I don't like the others at all. If
I am beautiful or not, it is as God made me, and I have nothing to do
with it, and desire no credit, but if I could only be good it might be
my own doing, perhaps, and I ought to have praise. I wonder if there
is really and truly any good in me, and if you have read me aright."
Then looking up at him with a touch of consternation: "Or are you
laughing at me?"

Brandon wisely let the last suggestion pass unnoticed.

"I am sure that I am right; you have glorious capacities for good, but
alas! corresponding possibilities for evil. It will eventually all
depend upon the man you marry. He can make out of you a perfect woman,
or the reverse." Again there was the surprised expression in Mary's
face, but Brandon's serious look disarmed her.

"I fear you are right, as to the reverse, at any rate; and the worst
of it is, I shall never be able to choose a man to help me, but shall
sooner or later be compelled to marry the creature who will pay the
greatest price."

"God forbid!" said Brandon reverently.

They were growing rather serious, so Mary turned the conversation
again into the laughing mood, and said, with a half sigh: "Oh! I hope
you are right about the possibilities for good, bu