“You seek to foil me with sophisms,” said Georgiana, warming.  “A woman—­even a girl—­should remember what is due to herself.  You are attracted by a passionate nature—­I mean, men are.”

“The general instance,” assented Merthyr.

“Then, do you never reflect,” pursued Georgiana, “on the composition and the elements of that sort of nature?  I have tried to think the best of it.  It seems to me still no, not contemptible at all—­but selfishness is the groundwork of it; a brilliant selfishness, I admit.  I see that it shows its best feature, but is it the nobler for that?  I think, and I must think, that excellence is a point to be reached only by unselfishness, and that usefulness is the test of excellence.”

“Before there has been any trial of her?” asked Merthyr.  “Have you not been a little too eager to put the test to her?”

Georgiana reluctantly consented to have her argument attached to a single person.  “She is not a child, Merthyr.”

“Ay; but she should bethought one.”

“I confess I am utterly at sea,” Georgiana sighed.  “Will you at least allow that sordid selfishness does less mischief than this ‘passion’ you admire so much?”

“I will allow that she may do herself more mischief than if she had the opposite vice of avarice—­anything you will, of that complexion.”

“And why should she be regarded as a child?” asked Georgiana piteously.

“Because, if she has outnumbered the years of a child, she is no further advanced than a child, owing to what she has to get rid of.  She is overburdened with sensations that set her head on fire.  Her solid, firm, and gentle heart keeps her balanced, so long as there is no one playing on it.  That a fool should be doing so, is scarcely her fault.”

Georgiana murmured to herself, “He is not a fool.”  She said, “I do see a certain truth in what you say, dear Merthyr.  But I have been disappointed in her.  I have taken her among my poor.  She listens to their tales, without sympathy.  I took her into a sick-room.  She stood by a dying bed like a statue.  Her remark when we came into the air was, ’Death seems easy, if it were not so stifling!’ Herself always! herself the centre of what she sees and feels!  And again, she has no active desire to do good to any mortal thing.  A passive wish that everybody should be happy, I know she has.  Few have not.  She would give money if she had it.  But this is among the mysteries of Providence to me, that one no indifferent to others should be gifted with so inexplicable a power of attraction.”

Merthyr put this case to her:  “Suppose you saw any of the poor souls you wait on lying sick with fever, would it be just to describe the character of one so situated as fretful, ungrateful, of rambling tongue, poor in health, and generally of loose condition of mind?”

“There, again, is that foreign doctrine which exults in the meanest triumphs by getting the thesis granted that we are animal—­only animals!” Georgiana burst out.  You argue that at this season and at that season she is helpless.  If she is a human creature, must she not have a mind to cover those conditions?”