"Not your own? I should have thought that no one but you and Anderssen could have made such an ending to it."
Grace gave her one of those beseeching, half-reproachful looks, with which she always answered praise; and then,—"Would you like to hear the children repeat a hymn, my lady?"
"No. I want to know where that story came from."
Grace blushed, and stammered.
"I know where," said Campbell. "You need not be ashamed of having read the book, Miss Harvey. I doubt not that you took all the good from it, and none of the harm, if harm there be."
Grace looked at him; at once surprised and relieved.
"It was a foolish romance-book, sir, as you seem to know. It was the only one which I ever read, except Hans Anderssen's,—which are not romances, after all. But the beginning was so full of God's truth, sir, —romance though it was,—and gave me such precious new light about educating children, that I was led on unawares. I hope I was not wrong."
"This schoolroom proves that you were not," said Campbell. "'To the pure, all things are pure.'"
"What is this mysterious book? I must know!" said Valencia.
"A very noble romance, which I made Mellot read once, containing the ideal education of an English nobleman, in the middle of the last century."