“Miss Todd,” said Mr Maguire, “when I look into my own heart, I see well how black it is. It is full of iniquity; it is a grievous sore that is ever running, and will not be purified.”

“Gracious me, how unpleasant!” said Miss Todd.

“I trust that there is no one here who has not a sense of her own wickedness.”

“Or of his,” said Miss Todd.

“Or of his,” and Mr Maguire looked very hard at Mr Fuzzybell. Mr Fuzzybell was a quiet, tame old gentleman, who followed his wife’s heels about wherever she went; but even he, when attacked in this way, became very fierce, and looked back at Mr Maguire quite as severely as Mr Maguire looked at him.

“Or of his,” continued Mr Maguire; “and therefore far be it from me to think hardly of the amusements of other people. But when this gentleman tells me that his excellent parent warned him against the fascination of cards, I cannot but ask him to remember those precepts to his dying bed.”

“I won’t say what I may do later in life,” said Mr Rubb.

“When he becomes like you and me, Mrs Fuzzybell,” said Miss Todd.

“When one does get older,” said Mr Rubb.

“And has succeeded in throwing off all decorum,” said Miss Todd.

“How can you say such things?” asked Miss Baker, who was shocked by the tenor of the conversation.

“It isn’t I, my dear; it’s Mr Rubb and Mr Maguire, between them. One says he has thrown off all decorum and the other declares himself to be a mass of iniquity. What are two poor old ladies like you and I to do in such company?”

Miss Mackenzie, when she heard Mr Maguire declare himself to be a running sore, was even more angry with him than with Mr Rubb. He, at any rate, should have known better. After all, was not Mr Ball better than either of them, though his head was bald and his face worn with that solemn, sad look of care which always pervaded him?

In the course of the evening she found herself seated apart from the general company, with Mr Maguire beside her. The eye that did not squint was towards her, and he made an effort to be agreeable to her that was not altogether ineffectual.

“Does not society sometimes make you very sad?” he said.

Society had made her sad to-night, and she answered him in the affirmative.

“It seems that people are so little desirous to make other people happy,” she replied.

“It was just that idea that was passing through my own mind. Men and women are anxious to give you the best they have, but it is in order that you may admire their wealth or their taste; and they strive to be witty, amusing, and sarcastic! but that, again, is for the éclat they are to gain. How few really struggle to make those around them comfortable!”

“It comes, I suppose, from people having such different tastes,” said Miss Mackenzie, who, on looking round the room, thought that the people assembled there were peculiarly ill-assorted.