e other answered, "unimportant;
as if the affairs that worry our hearts out are, after all, of very
little consequence in the scheme of existence."

"They are our life," Joan argued, "one has to worry and work things out
for oneself."

"You are a Browningite," laughed Miss Abercrombie; she glanced up
sideways at her companion.

"'As it were better youth
Should strive through acts uncouth
Towards making, than repose on aught found made.'

He is right in a way, though, mind you, I don't know that it pays women
to do much in the struggling line."

"I do wonder why you say that," said Joan; "you have always struck me as
being, above everything else, a fighter."

"Probably why my advice lies along other directions," admitted Miss
Abercrombie; "it is extremely uncomfortable to be a pioneer."

"But in the end, even if you have won nothing, it brings you the courage
of having stuck to your convictions."

"Yes," Miss Abercrombie answered dryly, "it certainly brings you that."

They walked in silence again for a while, turning into a short cut to
their destination across the fields.

"Your aunt has got convictions too." Miss Abercrombie reopened the
conversation, evidently her thoughts had been working along the same
lines. "They are uncomfortable things; witness the judgment she metes
out to that unfortunate girl in the village."

"You mean Bridget?" Joan's voice had suddenly a touch of fear in it;
Miss Abercrombie stole a quick look at her. "I was asking Mary about her
the other day."

"Immorality, your aunt calls it," sniffed Miss Abercrombie, "and for
that she would quite willingly, good, kind woman as she is, make this
child--Bridget is seventeen, you know--an outcast for the rest of her
life. Immorality!"

"What would you call it?" questioned Joan; she spoke stiffly, for she
was singularly uneasy under the discussion, yet she had always wanted to
argue the matter out with Miss Abercrombie.

"I hate the word 'immoral' to begin with," the little woman went on;
"not that I am exactly out against regulations. Laws and customs have
come into being, there is little doubt about that, to protect the weak
against the strong. The peculiar thing about them is that they always
wreak their punishments on the weak. Poor Bridget, even without your
aunt's judgment, she pays the penalty, doesn't she?"

"I suppose Aunt Janet is a little hard about these things," Joan
admitted. "You see, the idea of going against laws