“Nonsense!  I dont complain of her.  But what you call her education, as far as I can make it out, appears to have consisted of stuffing her with lies, and making it a point of honor with her to believe them in spite of sense and reason.  The sense of duty that rises on that sort of foundation is more mischievous than downright want of principle.  I dont dispute your right, you who constitute polite society, to skin over all the ugly facts of life.  But to make your daughters believe that the skin covers healthy flesh is a crime.  Poor Marian thinks that a room is clean when all the dust is swept out of sight under the furniture; and if honest people rake it out to bring it under the notice of those whose duty it is to remove it, she is disgusted with them, and ten to one accuses them of having made it themselves.  She doesnt know what sort of world she is in, thanks to the misrepresentations of those who should have taught her.  She will deceive her children in just the same way, if she ever has any.  If she had been taught the truth in her own childhood, she would know how to face it, and would be a strong woman as well as an amiable one.  But it is too late now.  The truth seems natural to a child; but to a grown woman or man, it is a bitter lesson in the learning, though it may be invigorating when it is well mastered.  And you know how seldom a hard task forced on an unwilling pupil is well mastered.”

“What is truth?” said the clergyman, sententiously.

“All that we know, Master Pilate,” retorted Conolly with a laugh.  “And we know a good deal.  It may seem small in comparison with what we dont know; but it is more than any one of us can hold, for all that.  We know, for instance, that the world was not planned by a sentimental landscape gardener.  If Marian ever learns that—­which she may, although I am neither able nor willing to teach it to her—­she will not thank those who gave her so much falsehood to unlearn.  Until then, she will, I am afraid, do little else than lay up a store of regrets for herself.”

“This is very strange.  We always looked upon Marian as an exceptionally amiable girl.”

“So she is, unfortunately.  There is no institution so villainous but she will defend it; no tyranny so oppressive but she will make a virtue of submitting to it; no social cancer so venomous but she will shrink from cutting it out, and plead that it is a comfortable thing, and much better as it is.  She knows that she disobeyed her father, and that he deserved to be disobeyed; yet she condemns other women who are disobedient, and stands out against Nelly McQuinch in defence of the unselfishness of parental love.  She knows that the increased freedom of movement allowed to her as a married woman has been healthy for her; yet she looks coldly at other young women who assert their right to freedom, and are not afraid to walk through the streets without a sheepdog, human or otherwise, at their heels.  She knows