It was on my lips to say, "Oh no!"—but I felt my cheeks grow hot, and I did not quite like to tell a downright lie. I am sure Lady Judith saw it, but she kindly took no notice. However, at this point, Damoiselle Melisende came back to her leaves, and we began to talk of something else. I asked Marguerite, at night, if people disappointed her. "Did my Damoiselle expect never to be disappointed?" she answered, turning the question on myself at once. (Old people do. They seem to think one always means one’s self, however careful one may be.) "Then I am afraid she will be disappointed." "But why?" said I. "Why don’t people do right, as one expects them to do?" "Does one always know what is right? As to why,—there are the world, the flesh, and the Devil, against it; and if it were not for the grace of the good God, any one of them would be more than enough." The world, the flesh, and the Devil! The world,—that is other people; and they do provoke one, and make one do wrong, terribly, sometimes. But the flesh,—why, that is me. I don’t prevent myself doing right. Marguerite must be mistaken. Then, what is grace? One hears a great deal about it; but I never properly understood what it was. It certainly is no gift that one can see and handle. I suppose it must be something which the good God puts into our minds; but what is it? I will ask Lady Judith and Marguerite. Being old, they seem to know things; and Marguerite has a great deal of sense for a villein. Then, having been my nurse, and always dwelt with nobles, she is not quite like a common villein; though of course the blood must remain the same. I wonder what it is about Lady Isabel which I do not like. I have been puzzling over it, and I am no nearer. It feels to me as if there were something slippery about her. She is very gracious and affable, but I should never think of calling her sweet—at least, not sweet like her sister. She seems just the opposite of Lady Judith, who never stops to think whether it is her place to do any thing, but just does it because it wants doing. Lady Isabel, on the contrary, seems to me to do only what _she_ wants doing. In some inexplicable manner, she slides out of every thing which she does not fancy; and yet she so manages it that one never sees she is doing it at the time. I never can fathom people of that sort. But I do not like them. As for darling Lady Sybil, I love her better and better every day. I do not wonder at Guy. Of Guy himself I see very little. He is Regent of the kingdom, and too busy to attend to any thing. "Marguerite," I said, "what is grace?" "Does my Damoiselle mean the grace of the good God?" I nodded. "I think it is help," she answered. "But what sort of help?" "The sort we need at the minute." "But I do not quite understand," said I. "We get grace when we receive the good Lord; but we do not get help. Help for what?"