"The end justifies the means," says Miss Penelope, as solemnly as if this speech emanated from her throat as an original remark.
"Oh, don't! my dear Penelope!" says Miss [Priscilla], with a shudder; "that is their principal argument."
"Whose? The children's?" asks Miss Penelope, startled.
"No; the Jesuits,—the Inquisitors,—those dreadful people we read of in 'Westward Ho,'" says Miss Priscilla, protestingly. "Still, I agree with you; secrecy is the part we have to play. We must keep one eye" (as if there was only one between them) "upon him without seeming to do so. And there he is,"—pointing through the [window] to where Terence may be seen coming slowly towards the window in which they stand in a most unhappy frame of mind.
"I wonder where he can have been for the past half-hour," says Miss Priscilla presently, in a nervous whisper, though Terence is so far off that if she spoke at the top of her lungs he could not have heard her.
"Perhaps if we ask him he may tell us," says Miss Penelope, equally nervous and decidedly with great doubt as to the success of her suggestion.
"Well, you ask him," says Miss Priscilla.
"I am greatly wanting in force on occasions such as these," says Miss Penelope, hurriedly. "No, no, my dear; you ask him. But be gentle with him, my dear Priscilla."
"Why can't you do it?" persists Miss Blake, plainly anxious to shift the obnoxious task from her own shoulders to another's. "You have great influence with the children, I have remarked many times."
"Nothing to yours," says Miss Penelope, with an agitated wave of her hand. "I couldn't do it; indeed I couldn't, my dear Priscilla," openly quaking. "Don't ask me. See, here he comes! Now be firm,—be firm, Priscilla, but lenient, very lenient: he is only a boy, remember, and even the great Luther was strangely wanting in principle when young."