knew. At last, with the decision of conscious
superiority, and the judicial air afforded by the precision of
utterance belonging to her class--a precision so strangely conjoined
with the lack of truth and logic both--she said, in a tone that gave to
the merest puerility the consequence of a judgment between contending
sages:

"The difference is, that the nobleman is born to ease and dignity and
affluence, and the--shopkeeper to buy and sell for his living."

"Many a nobleman," suggested Mary, "buys and sells without the
necessity of making a living."

"That is the difference," said Hesper.

"Then the nobleman buys and sells to make money, and the shopkeeper to
make a living?"

"Yes," granted Hesper, lazily.

"Which is the nobler end--to live, or to make money?" But this question
was too far beyond Hesper. She did not even choose to hear it.

"And," she said, resuming her definition instead, "the nobleman deals
with great things, the shopkeeper with small."

"When things are finally settled," said Mary--"Gracious, Mary!" cried
Hesper, "what do you mean? Are not things settled for good this many a
century? I am afraid I have been harboring an awful radical!--a--what
do they call it?--a communist!"

She would have turned the whole matter out of doors, for she was tired
of it.

"Things hardly look as if they were going to remain just as they are at
this precise moment," said Mary. "How could they, when, from the very
making of the world, they have been going on changing and changing,
hardly ever even seeming to standstill?"

"You frighten me, Mary! You will do something terrible in my house, and
I shall get the blame of it!" said Hesper, laughing.

But she did in truth feel a little uncomfortable. The shadow of dismay,
a formless apprehension overclouded her. Mary's words recalled
sentiments which at home she had heard alluded to with horror; and,
however little parents may be loved or respected by their children,
their opinions will yet settle, and, until they are driven out by
better or worse, will cling.

"When I tell you what I was really thinking of, you will not be alarmed
at my opinions," said Mary, not laughing now, but smiling a deep, sweet
smile; "I do not believe there ever will be any settlement of things
but one; they can not and must not stop changing, until the kingdom of
heaven is come. Into that they must change, and rest."

"You are leaving politics for religion now, Mary. That is the one