nds an r, so that he said, "vewy twying." I don't know whether it is
that he can't, or that he won't. "Very trying, truly, Madam, to see men
give their lives for a falling cause. Distressing--quite so."

"I don't know that it hurts me to see a man give his life for a falling
cause," saith my Aunt Kezia. "Sometimes, that is one of the grandest
things a man can do. But to see a man give his life up for a false
cause--a young man especially, full of hope and fervency, whose life
might have been made a blessing to his friends and the world--that is
trying, Mr Parmenter, if you like."

"Are we not bound to give our lives for the cause of truth and beauty?"
asked Amelia, in that low voice which sounds like an Aeolian harp.

"Truth--yes," saith my Aunt Kezia. "I do not know what you mean by
beauty, and I am not sure you do. But, my dear, we do give our lives,
always, for some cause. Unfortunately, it is very often a false one."

"What do you mean, Aunt?" said Amelia.

"Why, when you give your life to a cause, is it not the same thing in
the end as giving it for one?" answered my Aunt Kezia. "I do not see
that it matters, really, whether you give it in twenty minutes or
through twenty years. The twenty years are the harder thing to do--that
is all."

"Duncan Keith says--" Flora began, and stopped.

"Let us hear it, my dear, if it be anything good," quoth my Aunt Kezia.

"I cannot tell if you will think it good or not, Aunt," said Flora. "He
says that very few give their lives to or for any cause. They nearly
always give them for a person."

"Mr Keith must be a hero of chivalry," drawled Mr Parmenter, showing
his white teeth in a lazy laugh.

(Why do people always simper when they have fine teeth?)

"Chivalry ought to be another name for Christian courage and charity,"
saith my Aunt Kezia. "Ay, child--Mr Keith is right. It is a pity it
isn't always the right person."

"How are you to know you have found the right person, Aunt?" said Hatty,
in her pert way.

My Aunt Kezia looked round at her in her awful fashion. Then she said,
gravely, "You will find, Hatty, you have always got the wrong one,
unless you aim at the Highest Person of all."

I heard Cecilia whisper to Mr Parmenter, "Oh, dear! is she going to
preach a sermon?" and he hid a laugh under a yawn. Somebody else heard
it too.

"Mrs Kezia's sermons are as short as some parsons' texts," said
Ephraim, quietly, and not in a whisper.

"But y