Lucilla.  Oh! no, no; I don’t mean that way; I don’t mean that it makes me tell lies, quite out.

L. Only that it tells lies within you?

Lucilla.  Yes.

L. Then, outside of it, you know what is true, and say so; and I may trust the outside of your heart; but within, it is all foul and false.  Is that the way?

Lucilla.  I suppose so:  I don’t understand it quite.

L. There is no occasion for understanding it; but do you feel it?  Are you sure that your heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked?

Lucilla (much relieved by finding herself among phrases with which she is acquainted).  Yes, sir.  I’m sure of that.

L. (pensively).  I’m sorry for it, Lucilla.

Lucilla.  So am I, indeed.

L. What are you sorry with, Lucilla?

Lucilla.  Sorry with, sir?

L. Yes; I mean, where do you feel sorry; in your feet?

Lucilla (laughing a little).  No, sir, of course.

L. In your shoulders, then?

Lucilla.  No, sir.

L. You are sure of that?  Because, I fear, sorrow in the shoulders would not be worth much.

Lucilla.  I suppose I feel it in my heart, if I really am sorry.

L. If you really are!  Do you mean to say that you are sure you are utterly wicked, and yet do not care?

Lucilla.  No, indeed; I have cried about it often.

L. Well, then, you are sorry in your heart?

Lucilla.  Yes, when the sorrow is worth anything.

L. Even if it be not, it cannot be anywhere else but there.  It is not the crystalline lens of your eyes which is sorry, when you cry?

Lucilla.  No, sir, of course.

L. Then, have you two hearts; one of which is wicked, and the other grieved? or is one side of it sorry for the other side?

Lucilla. (weary of cross-examination, and a little vexed).  Indeed, sir, you know I can’t understand it; but you know how it is written—­“another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.”

L. Yes, Lucilla, I know how it is written; but I do not see that it will help us to know that, if we neither understand what is written, nor feel it.  And you will not get nearer to the meaning of one verse, if, as soon as you are puzzled by it, you escape to another, introducing three new words—­“law,” “members,” and “mind”; not one of which you at present know the meaning of; and respecting which, you probably never will be much wiser; since men like Montesquieu and Locke have spent great part of their lives in endeavoring to explain two of them.

Lucilla.  Oh! please, sir, ask somebody else.

L. If I thought any one else could answer better than you, Lucilla, I would:  but suppose I try, instead, myself, to explain your feelings to you?

Lucilla.  Oh, yes; please do.