'Which would you like me to do best, Miss?'—anxiously.
'If you succeeded in doing the more difficult thing of the two, I should of course have greater respect for you, Nancy; but I should not be less your friend for your being weak. I am not sufficiently perfect myself, to insist upon perfection in my friends.'
'That's it, Miss; that's just where it is! If Mrs Gower our matron only had some faults—ever such little ones—of her own, she might get nearer to us. It's the terrible goodness which makes it so impossible for her to understand us, and us to understand her. She seems to be always a-thinking about the great difference there is between her and us. It only makes us more spiteful against the goodness, when we see how hard it makes people. Why, the bad ones are ever so much more sorry for one another, and ready to help!'
'And you judge all others—the lady who has done so much to prove her love and unselfishness, as well as every one else—by this matron. She is probably not suited to the office; but I do not see'—— I paused, recognising that it was not just then the best moment for advancing any argument in vindication of what she termed 'goodness.' All that would be suggested by a better experience, by-and-by. So I merely added: 'Whether she feels it so or not, it is very sad for Mrs Gower to have so utterly failed in reaching your hearts, as she appears to have done. But we must not forget that it is our own defects, and not hers, which are in question just now, you know, Nancy.'
'I know what you mean, Miss; and I'm sorry as I did not'——
'Never mind about the past. There is plenty of time before us, I hope. Which is it to be, Nancy? Will you come with me now, or go back to the Home?'
'I will go back, Miss; and if you hear'——
'If I hear! Of course I shall go to see you to-morrow. You ought to know that.'
She rose, looked steadily towards the Home, now darkly and sharply defined against the moonlit sky, then turned her eyes upon my face, grasped my hand with a strong firm grip for a moment, and walked swiftly and silently away.