Luckily for the general peace, the Calcott household was on the move, and Jem solaced himself on their departure by exclaiming, ’Well done, Strasburg system!  A high-power Greek-imbibing machine, he may be, but as to comprehending Fitzjocelyn—­’

‘Nay,’ said Isabel, ’I think Lord Fitzjocelyn ought to carry about a pocket expositor, if he will be so very startling.  He did not stay to tell us what to understand by narrow minds.’

’Did you ever hear of any one good for anything, that was not accused of a narrow mind?’ exclaimed James.

‘If that were what he meant,’ said Isabel,—­’but he said his trust was in the narrow mind—­’

‘In what is popularly so called,’ said James.

‘I think,’ said Mary, leaning forward, and speaking low, ’that he did not mean it to be explained away.  I think he was going to say that the heart may be wide, but the mind must be so far narrow, that it will accept only the one right, not the many wrong.’

’I thought narrowness of mind consisted in thinking your own way the only right one,’ said Isabel.

‘Every one says so,’ said Mary, ’and that is why he says it takes strength of mind to be narrow-minded.  Is not the real evil, the judging people harshly, because their ways are not the same; not the being sure that the one way is the only right!  Others may be better than ourselves, and may be led right in spite of their error, but surely we are not to think all paths alike—­

‘And is that Lord Fitzjocelyn’s definition of a narrow mind?’ said Isabel.  ’It sounds like faith and love.  Are you sure you did not make it yourself, Miss Ponsonby?’

‘I could not,’ said Mary, blushing, as she remembered one Sunday evening when he had said something to that effect, which had insensibly overthrown the theory in which she had been bred up, namely, that all the sincere were right, and yet that, practically every one was to be censured, who did not act exactly like Aunt Melicent.

She rose to take leave, and Clara clung to her, emerging from the shade of her cabinet with colour little mitigated since her disappearance.  James would have come with them, but was detained by Lady Conway for a few moments longer than it took them to put on their shawls; and Clara would not wait.  She dragged Mary down the steps into the darkness, and groaned out, ’O Mary, he can never speak to me again!’

’My dear! he will not recollect it.  It was very awkward, but new places and new people often do make us forget ourselves.’

’Everybody saw, everybody heard!  O, I shall never bear to meet one of them again!’

‘I think very few saw or heard—­’ began Mary.

’He did!  I did!  That’s enough!  The rest is nothing!  I have been as bad as any one at school!  I shall never hold up my head there again as I have done, and Louis!  Oh!’

’Dear child, it will not be remembered.  You only forgot how tall you were, and that you were not at home.  He knows you too well to care.’