But this was not the first time that Anne had been driven out of patience by the suggestions of her little sister. When Rose had gone away, she calmed down by degrees and gradually got back her self-possession. What did Rose know about this matter or any other matter in which serious things like the heart, like love and the larger concerns of life were involved? She knew about superficial things, having often a keen power of observation, Anne knew; but the other matters were too high for her. Her unawakened mind could not comprehend them. How could she have found a way of seeing into Cosmo’s heart which was denied to Anne? It was impossible; the only thing that could have made her believe in Rose’s superior penetration was that, Anne felt, she did not herself understand Cosmo as she had thought she did, and was perplexed about his course of action, and anxious as to the motives which she could not believe to have been anything but fine and noble. Though his coming had brought her back to something of her original faith, yet she had been checked and chilled without admitting it to herself. All that we can conceive of perfection is, perhaps, what we would have done ourselves in certain circumstances, or, at least, what we would have wished to do, what we might have been capable of in the finest combination of motives and faculties; and whatsoever might be the glosses with which she explained his behaviour to herself, Anne knew very well that this was not how Cosmo had behaved. She could not think of his conduct as carrying out any ideal, and here accordingly was the point in which her mind was weak and subject to attack. But after a while she laughed, or tried to laugh, at herself; ‘as if Rose could know!’ she said, and settled down to arrange her papers again, and finally to write to Cosmo, which was her way of working off her fright and returning to herself.