Next, her Ladyship was eloquent upon Laura's implacability. 'Those who were so very unforgiving,' she supposed, 'were conscious that they had no need to be forgiven. Such people might pretend to be Christians, but in her opinion such pretensions were mere hypocrisy.' Laura stood amazed at the strength of self-deception which could produce this sentiment from lips which had pronounced inextinguishable resentment against an only child. Recovering herself, she calmly made the obvious reply, 'that she entertained no enmity against Hargrave; that on the contrary she sincerely wished him every blessing, and the best of all blessings, a renewed mind; but that the Christian precept was never meant to make the vicious and the impure the denizens of our bosoms.' It might be thought that such a reply was quite sufficient, but Lady Pelham possessed one grand qualification for a disputant; she defied conviction. She could shift, and turn, and bewilder, till she found herself precisely at the point from whence she set out. She had a practice, too, of all others the most galling to an ingenuous and independent spirit--she would invent a set of opinions and sentiments, and then argue upon them as if they were real. It was in vain for Laura to disclaim them. Lady Pelham could prove incontrovertibly that they were Laura's sentiments; or, which was the same thing, proceeded as if she had proved it. She insisted that Laura acted on a principle of revenge against Hargrave, for the slight his inconstancy had put upon her; and argued most convincingly on the folly and wickedness of a revengeful spirit. Laura in vain protested her innocence. Lady Pelham was certain of the fact; and she dilated on the guilt of such a sentiment, and extenuated the temporary recession of Hargrave, till a bystander must have concluded that Laura was the delinquent, and he her harmless victim. Her Ladyship declared, that, 'she did not wonder at her niece's obduracy. She had never, in her life, known a person of cool temper who was capable of forgiving. She had reason, for her own part, to be thankful that, if she had the failings of a warm temper, she had its advantages too. She had never, except in one instance, known what it was to feel permanent displeasure.'