call anything but vindictive.  Crayston is to be made an example of, they say.  As if my father had not half the sin on his own head!  As if he had rightly discharged his duties as a rich man!  Money was as dross to him; but he ought to have remembered how it might be as life itself to many, and be craved after, and coveted, till the black longing got the better of principle, as it has done with this poor Crayston.  They say the man was once so truthful, and now his self-respect is gone; and he has evidently lost the very nature of truth.  I dread riches.  I dread the responsibility of them.  At any rate, I wish I had begun life as a poor boy, and worked my way up to competence.  Then I could understand and remember the temptations of poverty.  I am afraid of my own heart becoming hardened as my father’s is.  You have no notion of his passionate severity to-day, Maggie!  It was quite a new thing even to me!”

“It will only be for a short time,” said she.  “He must be much grieved about this man.”

“If I thought I could ever grow as hard and different to the abject entreaties of a criminal as my father has been this morning—­one whom he has helped to make, too—­I would go off to Australia at once.  Indeed, Maggie, I think it would be the best thing we could do.  My heart aches about the mysterious corruptions and evils of an old state of society such as we have in England.—­What do you say Maggie?  Would you go?”

She was silent—­thinking.

“I would go with you directly, if it were right,” said she, at last.  “But would it be?  I think it would be rather cowardly.  I feel what you say; but don’t you think it would be braver to stay, and endure much depression and anxiety of mind, for the sake of the good those always can do who see evils clearly.  I am speaking all this time as if neither you nor I had any home duties, but were free to do as me liked.”

“What can you or I do?  We are less than drops in the ocean, as far as our influence can go to model a nation?”

“As for that,” said Maggie, laughing, “I can’t remodel Nancy’s old-fashioned ways; so I’ve never yet planned how to remodel a nation.”

“Then what did you mean by the good those always can do who see evils clearly?  The evils I see are those of a nation whose god is money.”

“That is just because you have come away from a distressing scene.  To-morrow you will hear or read of some heroic action meeting with a nation’s sympathy, and you will rejoice and be proud of your country.”

“Still I shall see the evils of her complex state of society keenly; and where is the good I can do?”

“Oh!  I can’t tell in a minute.  But cannot you bravely face these evils, and learn their nature and causes; and then has God given you no powers to apply to the discovery of their remedy?  Dear Frank, think!  It may be very little you can do—­and you may never see the effect of it, any more than the widow saw the world-wide effect of her mite.  Then if all the good and thoughtful men run away from us to some new country, what are we to do with our poor dear Old England?”