eemed to put in them by this explanation, and those who liked him
before sought the new shop as they had frequented the old one.

Unlike most men, not to say lawyers, Mr. Brett was fully recognizant to
Mary of his oversight, and was not a little relieved to be assured she
would not have had the thing otherwise: she would gladly meet Mr.
Turnbull in a fair field--not that she would in the least acknowledge
or think of him as a rival; she would simply carry out her own ideas of
right, without regard to him or any measures he might take; the result
should be as God willed. Mr. Brett shook his head: he knew her father
of old, and saw the daughter prepared to go beyond the father. Theirs
were principles that did not come within the range of his practice! He
said to himself and his wife that the world could not go on for a
twelvemonth if such ways were to become universal: whether by the world
he meant his own profession, I will not inquire. Certainly he did not
make the reflection that the new ways are intended to throw out the old
ways; and the worst argument against any way is that the world can not
go on so; for that is just what is wanted--that the world should not go
on so. Mr. Brett nevertheless admired not only Mary's pluck, but the
business faculty which every moment she manifested: there is a holy way
of doing business, and, little as business men may think it, that is
the standard by which they must be tried; for their judge in business
affairs is not their own trade or profession, but the man who came to
convince the world concerning right and wrong and the choice between
them; or, in the older speech-to reprove the world of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THORNWICK.

It was almost with bewilderment that Mrs. Helmer revisited Thornwick.
The near past seemed to have vanished like a dream that leaves a sorrow
behind it, and the far past to take its place. She had never been
accustomed to reflect on her own feelings; things came, were welcome or
unwelcome, proved better or worse than she had anticipated, passed
away, and were mostly forgotten. With plenty of faculty, Letty had not
yet emerged from the chrysalid condition; she lived much as one in a
dream, with whose dream mingle sounds and glimmers from the waking
world. Very few of us are awake, very few even alive in true, availing
sense. "Pooh! what stuff!" says the sleeper, and will say it until the
waking begins to come.