"I believe he is succeeding in Australia."

"I advised his father to send him abroad. There really was not room for him in England, and, unfortunately for the army, the examiners jibbed at his strictly phonetic spelling. He tells me he has given up being an A.D.C. and has taken to vine-growing, because if people are up in the world they always drink freely, and if they are 'down on their luck' they drink all the more to drown care. The reasoning appeared to me sound."

"He and James used to quarrel frightfully in the holidays," said Hester. "It was always the same reason, about playing fair. Poor James did not know that games were matters of deadly importance, and that a rule was a sacred thing. I wonder why it is that clergymen so often have the same code of honor as women; quite a different code from that of the average man."

"I think," said the Bishop, "it is owing to that difference of code that women clash so hopelessly with men when they attempt to compete or work with them. Women have not to begin with the esprit de corps which the most ordinary men possess. With what difficulty can one squeeze out of a man any fact that is detrimental to his friend, or even to his acquaintance, however obviously necessary it may be that the information should be asked for and given. Yet I have known many good and earnest and affectionate women, who lead unselfish lives, who will 'give away' their best woman friend at the smallest provocation, or without any provocation at all; will inform you, à propos of nothing, that she was jilted years ago, or that her husband married her for her money. The causes of humiliation and disaster in a woman's life seem to have no sacredness for her women friends. Yet if that same friend whom she has run down is ill, the runner down will nurse her day and night with absolutely selfless devotion."

"I have often been puzzled by that," said Rachel. "I seem to be always making mistakes about women, and perhaps that is the reason. They show themselves capable of some deep affection or some great self-sacrifice, and I respect and admire them, and think they are like that all through. And the day comes when they are not quite straightforward, or are guilty of some petty meanness, which a man who is not fit to black their boots would never stoop to."

Hester's eyes fixed on her friend.

"Do you tell them? Do you show them up to themselves," she asked, "or do you leave them?"

"I do neither," said Rachel. "I treat them just the same as before."

"Then aren't you a hypocrite, too?"

Hester's small face was set like a flint.

"I think not," said Rachel, tranquilly, "any more than they are. The good is there for certain, and the evil is there for certain. Why should I take most notice of the evil, which is just the part which will be rubbed out of them presently, while the good will remain?"