"Then the nobleman buys and sells to make money, and the shopkeeper to make a living?" "Yes," granted Hesper, lazily. "Which is the nobler end--to live, or to make money?" But this question was too far beyond Hesper. She did not even choose to hear it. "And," she said, resuming her definition instead, "the nobleman deals with great things, the shopkeeper with small." "When things are finally settled," said Mary--"Gracious, Mary!" cried Hesper, "what do you mean? Are not things settled for good this many a century? I am afraid I have been harboring an awful radical!--a--what do they call it?--a communist!" She would have turned the whole matter out of doors, for she was tired of it. "Things hardly look as if they were going to remain just as they are at this precise moment," said Mary. "How could they, when, from the very making of the world, they have been going on changing and changing, hardly ever even seeming to standstill?" "You frighten me, Mary! You will do something terrible in my house, and I shall get the blame of it!" said Hesper, laughing. But she did in truth feel a little uncomfortable. The shadow of dismay, a formless apprehension overclouded her. Mary's words recalled sentiments which at home she had heard alluded to with horror; and, however little parents may be loved or respected by their children, their opinions will yet settle, and, until they are driven out by better or worse, will cling. "When I tell you what I was really thinking of, you will not be alarmed at my opinions," said Mary, not laughing now, but smiling a deep, sweet smile; "I do not believe there ever will be any settlement of things but one; they can not and must not stop changing, until the kingdom of heaven is come. Into that they must change, and rest." "You are leaving politics for religion now, Mary. That is the one fault I have to find with you--you won't keep things in their own places! You are always mixing them up--like that Mrs.--what's her name?--who will mix religion and love in her novels, though everybody tells her they have nothing to do with each other! It is so irreverent!" "Is it irreverent to believe that God rules the world he made, and that he is bringing things to his own mind in it?" "You can't persuade me religion means turning things upside down." "It means that a good deal more than people think. Did not our Lord say that many that are first shall be last, and the last first?" "What has that to do with this nineteenth century?" "Perhaps that the honorable shopkeeper and the mean nobleman will one day change places." "Oh," thought Hesper, "that is why the lower classes take so to religion!" But what she said was: "Oh, yes, I dare say! But everything then will be so different that it won't signify. When we are all angels, nobody will care who is first, and who is last. I'm sure, for one, it won't be anything to me."