redress these evils, if they exist?'

Tregarva twisted about again.

'I do not say that I think it, sir; but this I know, that every poor
man in the vale thinks it--that the parsons are afraid of the
landlords. They must see these things, for they are not blind; and
they try to plaster them up out of their own pockets.'

'But why, in God's name, don't they strike at the root of the
matter, and go straight to the landlords and tell them the truth?'
asked Lancelot.

'So people say, sir. I see no reason for it except the one which I
gave you. Besides, sir, you must remember, that a man can't quarrel
with his own kin; and so many of them are their squire's brothers,
or sons, or nephews.'

'Or good friends with him, at least.'

'Ay, sir, and, to do them justice, they had need, for the poor's
sake, to keep good friends with the squire. How else are they to
get a farthing for schools, or coal-subscriptions, or lying-in
societies, or lending libraries, or penny clubs? If they spoke
their minds to the great ones, sir, how could they keep the parish
together?'

'You seem to see both sides of a question, certainly. But what a
miserable state of things, that the labouring man should require all
these societies, and charities, and helps from the rich!--that an
industrious freeman cannot live without alms!'

'So I have thought this long time,' quietly answered Tregarva.

'But Miss Honoria,--she is not afraid to tell her father the truth?'

'Suppose, sir, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, that all the
devils had come up and played their fiends' tricks before them,--do
you think they'd have seen any shame in it?'

'I really cannot tell,' said Lancelot, smiling.

'Then I can, sir. They'd have seen no more harm in it than there
was harm already in themselves; and that was none. A man's eyes can
only see what they've learnt to see.'

Lancelot started: it was a favourite dictum of his in Carlyle's
works.

'Where did you get that thought, my friend'

'By seeing, sir.'

'But what has that to do with Miss Honoria?'

'She is an angel of holiness herself, sir; and, therefore, she goes
on without blushing or suspecting, where our blood would boil again.
She sees people in want, and thinks it must be so, and pities them
and relieves them. But she don't know want herself; and, therefore,
she don't know that it makes men beasts and devils. She's as pure
as God's light herself; and, t