"In fact," he said suddenly, as if the conversation had never been interrupted, "you don't believe in letting your light shine before men?" "_That_ I do!" she answered warmly. "I believe in letting a clear, steady, unvarying light fall alike on the evil and the good. I do not believe in running hysterically round with a farthing dip into every nook and cranny where we think some one may be guided by it." "You are severe," he said quietly. "Forgive me!" said Mona. "In truth, it is the metaphor that is too heavy for me: Fools and firearms--'the proverb is something musty.' Let me choose a weapon that I can use, and you will see what I mean. "Let us say that each man's life is a garden, which he is called upon to cultivate to the best of his ability. Which do you think will do it best,--the man who, regardless of how his garden looks from the road, works honestly and systematically, taking each bed in its turn; or the man who constantly says, 'A. will be coming down the highroad to-day; I must see that the rose-bed is in good condition: or, B. will be looking over the hedge, I must get that turnip-patch weeded,'--and so on?" It was some time before he answered. "I think you are a little one-sided, if you will excuse my saying so." "Please don't talk like that. How could I help being grateful for an honest opinion?--the more unlike my own, the better for me. Was I dogmatic again? Please remember that, whatever I say, I am feeling after the truth all the time." He looked at her, smiling. "But such as your metaphor is, let us carry it a little bit farther. Let us suppose that your garden is laid out in a land where the soil is poor and the people are starving. You know of a vegetable which would abundantly repay the trouble of cultivation, and would make all the difference between starvation and comparative comfort; but no one will believe in it. We will suppose that you yourself have ample means of livelihood, and are not dependent on any such thing. Would you not, nevertheless, sacrifice the symmetry of your flower-beds and grow my imaginary vegetable, if only to convince 'A. who comes down the highroad, and B. who looks over the hedge,' that starvation is needless?" Mona smiled and held out her hand. "Well said!" she cried cordially. "A good answer, and given with my own clumsy weapon. I admit that I would try to exercise 'conscious influence' in the very rare cases in which I felt called upon to be a reformer. But I am glad that is not required of me in the matter of church-going." "And the whole, wide, puzzling subject of Compromise?" he said. "Is there nothing in that?"