Rose’s face kindled with enthusiasm; and Harry looked at her with admiration.

“Tell me what I ought to do!” he said.

“I cannot tell you,” said Rose; “but where there is a will there is a way:  and, if you have the will, you will find the way.  But, first, you must try and repair the mischief you have done to Lillie.  By your own account of the matter, you have been encouraging and keeping up a sort of silly, romantic excitement in her.  It is worse than silly; it is sinful.  It is trifling with her best interests in this life and the life to come.  And I think you must know that, if you had treated her like an honest, plain-spoken brother or cousin, without any trumpery of gallantry or sentiment, things would have never got to be as they are.  You could have prevented all this; and you can put an end to it now.”

“Honestly, I will try,” said Harry.  “I will begin, by confessing my faults like a good boy, and take the blame on myself where it belongs, and try to make Lillie see things like a good girl.  But she is in bad surroundings; and, if I were her husband, I wouldn’t let her stay there another day.  There are no morals in that circle; it’s all a perfect crush of decaying garbage.”

“I think,” said Rose, “that, if this thing goes no farther, it will gradually die out even in that circle; and, in the better circles of New York, I trust it will not be heard of.  Mrs. Van Astrachan and I will appear publicly with Lillie; and if she is seen with us, and at this house, it will be sufficient to contradict a dozen slanders.  She has the noblest, kindest husband,—­one of the best men and truest gentlemen I ever knew.”

“I pity him then,” said Harry.

“He is to be pitied,” said Rose; “but his work is before him.  This woman, such as she is, with all her faults, he has taken for better or for worse; and all true friends and good people, both his and hers, should help both sides to make the best of it.”

“I should say,” said Harry, “that there is in this no best side.”

“I think you do Lillie injustice,” said Rose.  “There is, and must be, good in every one; and gradually the good in him will overcome the evil in her.”

“Let us hope so,” said Harry.  “And now, Miss Ferguson, may I hope that you won’t quite cross my name out of your good book?  You’ll be friends with me, won’t you?”

“Oh, certainly!” said Rose, with a frank smile.

“Well, let’s shake hands on that,” said Harry, rising to go.

Rose gave him her hand, and the two parted in all amity.

CHAPTER XXIII.

COMMON-SENSE ARGUMENTS.

Harry went straightway from the interview to call upon Lillie, and had a conversation with her; in which he conducted himself like a sober, discreet, and rational man.  It was one of those daylight, matter-of-fact kinds of talks, with no nonsense about them, in which things are called by their right names.  He confessed his own sins, and took upon his own shoulders the blame that properly belonged there; and, having thus cleared his conscience, took occasion to give Lillie a deal of grandfatherly advice, of a very sedative tendency.