"You have done a good thing."
"I am not sure if it is a good thing. Mrs. Armadale does not think so."
"Mrs. Armadale has rather narrow notions."
"I don't know. I should be glad to be sure she is not right. It's discouraging," he added, with half a smile;—"for the first time in my life I set myself to work; and now am not at all certain that I might not just as well have been idle."
"Work is a good thing in itself," said Mrs. Barclay, smiling.
"Pardon me!—work for an end. Work without an end—or with the end not attained—it is no better than a squirrel in a wheel."
"You have given a great deal of pleasure."
"To the children! For ought I know, they might have been just as well without it. There will be a reaction to-morrow, very likely; and then they will wish they had gone to see the Christmas tree at the other church."
"But they were kept at their own church."
"How do I know that is any good? Perhaps the teaching at the other school is the best."