"Not necessarily, Thyrza. That would bring one into an awkward predicament as to 'the right' in different houses."
"Yes, I mean that, exactly." A pause followed, and she knitted her brows. "Father doesn't always put things exactly as you do, Miss Con. And I know Sir Keith doesn't agree with Mr. Hepburn in a great many of his opinions,—or with father."
"Possibly. But you need not feel sure that the different ways of 'putting' a doctrine or belief must always mean error on the one side or the other."
"Mustn't it?"
"Not always. Very often of course both are wrong and very often perhaps both are right. Mr. Hepburn may be looking only on the silver side of the shield, and Sir Keith only on the golden."
"I should think Sir Keith would look on both sides," she said hastily, as if defending him.
I was amused, remembering her many professions of dislike.
"Yes, to the best of his power: but human powers are limited. If you and I were describing The Fell, we could only describe this side that we have seen. Somebody else, living beyond, might give so different a version of its look, that a listener would not recognise the mountain to be the same. That would be no reason why you and I should declare the other's account to be untrue,—merely because we had not had the same view."
"No. I see," Thyrza answered. "I suppose the right thing would be to get round to the other side, if one could." Then she reverted to her first thought. "Still, it does seem as if one could be sure of so little," she went on. "There are so many questions that no two people think exactly the same about."
"Rather an extreme manner of expressing it, my dear," I said. "You may be sure of much, though not of everything."