he bright vision of her imagination
melted into air.

"Without my mother's permission," said she, "I shall certainly not think
of, or even wish--" with a sigh--"to go to the ball, and if she has
already refused it that is enough."

Lady Emily regarded her with astonishment. "Pray, is it only on Sundays
you make a point of disobeying your mother?"

"It is only when I conceive a higher duty is required of me," answered
Mary.

"Why, I confess I used to think that to honour one's father and mother
_was _a duty, till you showed me the contrary. I have to thank you for
ridding me of that vulgar prejudice. And now, after setting me such a
noble example of independence, you seem to have got a new light on the
subject yourself."

"My obedience and disobedience both proceed from the same source,"
answered Mary. "My first duty, I have been taught, is to worship my
Maker--my next to obey my mother. My own gratification never can come in
competition with either."

"Well, I really can't enter into a religious controversy with you; but
it seems to me the sin, if it is one, is precisely the same, whether you
play the naughty girl in going to one place or another. I can see no
difference."

"To me it appears very different," said Mary; "and therefore I should be
inexcusable were I to choose the evil, believing it to be such."

"Say what you will," cried her cousin pettishly, "you never will convince
me there can be any harm in disobeying such a mother as yours--so
unreasonable--so--"

"The Bible makes no exceptions," interrupted Mary gently; "it is not
because of the reasonableness of our parents' commands that we are
required to obey them, but because it is the will of God."

"You certainly are a Methodist--there's no denying it. I have fought
some hard battles for you, but I see I must give you up. The thing won't
conceal." This was said with such an air of vexation that Mary burst
into a fit of laughter.

"And yet you are the oddest compound," continued her cousin, "so gay
and comical, and so little given to be shocked and scandalised at the
wicked ways of others; or to find fault and lecture; or, in short, to do
any of the insufferable things that your good people are so addicted to.
I really don't know what to think of you."

"Think of me as a creature with too many faults of her own to presume to
meddle with those of others," replied Mary, smiling at her cousin's
perplexity.

"Well, if all good people were like y