"But it is wrong, you think," he interrupted, "to talk such nonsense. Well, Mistress Isabel, I am not sure you are not right." And the dancing light in his eyes went out. "No, no, no," she cried, distressed. "I did not mean that. Only I did not understand." "I know, I know; and please God you never will." And he looked at her with such a tender gravity that her eyes fell. "Isabel is right," went on Mistress Margaret, in her singularly sweet old voice; "and you know it, my nephew. It is very well as a pastime, but some folks make it their business; and that is nothing less than fooling with the gifts of the good God." "Well, aunt Margaret," said James softly, "I shall not have much more of it. You need not fear for me." Lady Maxwell looked quickly at her son for a moment, and down again. He made an almost imperceptible movement with his head, Mistress Margaret looked across at him with her tender eyes beaming love and sorrow; and there fell a little eloquent silence; while Isabel glanced shyly from one to the other, and wondered what it was all about. Miss Mary Corbet stayed a few weeks, as the custom was when travelling meant so much; but Isabel was scarcely nearer understanding her. She accepted her, as simple clean souls so often have to accept riddles in this world, as a mystery that no doubt had a significance, though she could not recognise it. So she did not exactly dislike or distrust her, but regarded her silently out of her own candid soul, as one would say a small fearless bird in a nest must regard the man who thrusts his strange hot face into her green pleasant world, and tries to make endearing sounds. For Isabel was very fascinating to Mary Corbet. She had scarcely ever before been thrown so close to any one so serenely pure. She would come down to the Dower House again and again at all hours of the day, rustling along in her silk, and seize upon Isabel in the little upstairs parlour, or her bedroom, and question her minutely about her ways and ideas; and she would look at her silently for a minute or two together; and then suddenly laugh and kiss her--Isabel's transparency was almost as great a riddle to her as her own obscurity to Isabel. And sometimes she would throw herself on Isabel's bed, and lie there with her arms behind her head, to the deplorable ruin of her ruff; with her buckled feet twitching and tapping; and go on and on talking like a running stream in the sun that runs for the sheer glitter and tinkle of it, and accomplishes nothing. But she was more respectful to Isabel's simplicity than at first, and avoided dangerous edges and treacherous ground in a manner that surprised herself, telling her of the pageants at Court and fair exterior of it all, and little about the poisonous conversations and jests and the corrupt souls that engaged in them. She was immensely interested in Isabel's religion.