“So is a nightshade blossom fond of sunlight, and bright-colored and innocent of harm,” said Derwent, with a smile. “Mrs. Hay is a luxuriant animal--a woman of the world, as other women are women of the town; and her life is one continual sermon unto these: ‘Look ye; I am rich, happy, high-placed; I have all the opportunities and advantages, all the taste and teaching, that the best can give; and I have not one single taste, or thought, or aspiration that the worst of you have not; nor have I lost one that you have, except, perhaps, the fondness for domestic life which some of the best of you may once have had. I, too, still care for dress and show and the longing glance of many men; these things, that you are foolishly told have ruined you, are just what I, too, prize in life; I, Mrs. Wilton Hay, the great high-born beauty whose photograph you have seen in the shop-windows!’ I tell you,” ended Derwent, savagely, “but for a little poor fastidiousness, her soul resembles theirs as do two berries on one stem. But consciously, ’tis true she does no harm; possibly she has not even sinned; as well attach a moral guilt to some gaudy wayside weed, growing by mistake in a garden among the sesame and lilies!” “But Mrs. Gower seems very fond of her----” “Ah! Mrs. Gower!” answered Derwent, dropping his voice. “She is a different sort of person entirely. Fannie Hay is but a soldier of Apollyon; but Florence Gower is a general-of-division.” “I don’t see why you live with them,” said Arthur, boldly. “Ah, Holyoke, I live everywhere; I see these, and others, too. That night when I came back from the factory village, I had been talking with the men, and with some of the young girls there. And I could fancy Mrs. Hay going there, good-naturedly as she might, and saying to them: ‘Don’t care for dresses, or to lure men’s love or women’s envy, or to dazzle your neighbor Jenny or break her Johnny’s heart; read books, look at pictures, enjoy the beauties of nature, seek the beauty of holiness.’--‘Does your ladyship?’ say they.--‘Well, at all events, be clean,’ answers Fannie Hay, shocked.--‘But cleanliness costs money, my fine lady.’--Christ solved the question once; but now Christ is forgotten; and the sphinx looks out unanswered over the desert sand.” “Surely you can say nothing against Miss Farnum, at least?” “She is caught like the others, in their web,” said he. “But come, it’s late indeed to be troubling ourselves over these two or three. What are they to the million?”