The next day the ladies went out to sit on the lawn together in the shade of the trees, with their books and work. There were no sounds but such as, in the country, seem to accentuate the quiet, and are aids, not to thought, but to that higher faculty which awakes in the silence, and is to thought what the mechanical instrument is to the voice.
"How heavenly still it is!" Beth ejaculated. "It stirs me—fills me—how shall I express it?—makes me cognisant in some sort—conscious of things I don't know—things beyond all this, and even better worth our attention. The stillness here in these surroundings has the same benign effect on me that perfect solitude has elsewhere. What a luxury it is, though—solitude! I mean the privilege of being alone when one feels the necessity. I am fortunate, however," she added quickly, lest she should seem to be making a personal complaint, "in that I have a secret chamber all to myself, and so high up that I can almost hear what the wind whispers to the stars to make them twinkle. I go there when I want to be alone to think my thoughts, and no one disturbs me—not even my nearest neighbours, the angels; though if they did sometimes, I should not complain."
"They come closer than you think, perhaps," said Lady Fulda, who had just strolled up, with a great bunch of lilies on her arm. "Consider the lilies," she went on, holding them out to Beth. "Look into them. Think about them. No, though, do not think about them—feel. There is purification in the sensation of their beauty."
"Is purification always possible?" Beth said. "Can evil ever be cast out once it has taken root in the mind?"
"Are you speaking of thoughts or acts, I wonder?" Lady Fulda rejoined, sitting down beside Beth and looking dreamily into her flowers. "You know what we hold here: that no false step is irretrievable so long as we desire what is perfectly right. It is not the things we know of, nor even the things we have done, if the act is not habitual,—but the things we approve of that brand us as bad. The woman whose principles are formed out of a knowledge of good and evil is better, is more to be relied upon, than the woman who does not know enough to choose between them. It is not what the body does, but what the mind thinks that corrupts us."
"But from certain deeds evil thoughts are inseparable," Beth sighed; "and surely toleration of evil comes from undue familiarity with it?"
"Yes, if you do not keep your condemnation side by side with your knowledge of it," Lady Fulda agreed.
The night before she returned to Slane, Beth attended a meeting of the new order which Ideala had founded. It was the first thing of the kind she had been to, and she was much interested in the proceedings. Only women were present. Beth was one of a semicircle of ladies who sat on the platform behind the chair. There were subjects of grave social importance under discussion, and most of the speaking was exceedingly good, wise, temperate, and certainly not wanting in humour.
Towards the end of the evening there was an awkward pause because a lady who was to have spoken had not arrived. Mrs. Kilroy, who was in the chair, looked round for some one to fill the gap, and caught Beth's eye.
"May I speak?" Beth whispered eagerly, leaning over to her. "I have something to say."