"I don't think so," I said. "I am pretty sure that if I resolved not to go into society--being convinced that I ought not--I should be able to keep my resolution. And even if I should see that it was best for me not to go out till I am older, but to stay at home and study and improve myself, this winter, at least, I know I could do it. If I thought that balls and parties were wrong, I am certain I should never go to one." "That would be carrying the thing too far. Do not suppose that I mean anything like that. What I condemn is the wholesale worldliness--the unwearied career of folly that I have seen so much of, utterly excluding all cultivation of heart or intellect--utterly ignoring all beyond the present. That's the snare I would warn you of, my little friend. I know perhaps, better than you do, the trials that lie before you; so when I tell you that you will have need of all the courage, and self-denial, and resolution that you are mistress of, to keep you from that darkest of all lives--the life of a worldly woman--you must remember, I have seen many plays played out--have watched the opening and ending of more careers than one, the bloom and blight of more than one young life." A pause fell--a long and thoughtful one--while my companion, shading his eyes from the firelight, gazed fixedly upon vacancy, and some time had passed before he shook off the momentary gloom, and resumed, in a lighter tone: "That accident was a miserable business, was it not? Keeping you a prisoner in this dull old place, and knocking I don't know how many plans of mine in the head. And it is impossible to tell how many days it may be before I am able to travel, even if you should be. Perhaps, however, I may succeed in finding an escort for you, as I suppose you are impatient to be in New York." "Oh, I beg you will not take any trouble about it; I like it here very well. I am not in the least hurry, and I hope you will not go a moment before you are fit, on my account." My effort at civility was rewarded by a smile to which no one could be indifferent; and in reply, Mr. Rutledge said that he was glad to find me so philosophical; that I must amuse myself as well as I could, and he should tell Mrs. Churchill, when he wrote, that I was in a fair way of being made a strong-minded woman; between Mrs. Roberts' austere example in the conduct of the household, and his own invaluable moral lectures, my mind would be in no danger of rusting during my captivity. "Not to mention," he added gravely, "very able and improving mental exercise in the criticism of the most eminent living historians."