“How can I tell? that have known no trouble, as you say,” cried Lily. But Helen knew nothing to explain the keen tone of irony that was in the words, and looked at the girl with an appeal in her patient eyes, too full of her own sorrow to remember that, perhaps, this younger creature might have sorrows too. “How should I know,” said Lily, “what a woman cannot do? If it is to keep a man from wrong-doing, is that a woman’s business, Helen? How do I know? They say in books that it’s the women that drive them to it. Are you to take him on your shoulders and carry him away from the gates of ---- Or what are you expected to do?” “If she had married me when I asked her,” cried Duff, “she would have done that. Ay, that she would! From the gates of hell, that a little thing like you daren’t name. I would never have known the way they lay if she had put her hand in mine and come with me. And that I have told you, Helen, a hundred times, and a hundred more.” “Oh, Alick, Alick!” was all that Helen said. “And you never would have thought shame,” cried Lily, “to ride by on her shoulders, instead of walking on your own feet? I would have set my face like a flint and passed them by, and scorned them that wiled me there! I would have laid it upon nobody but myself if I had not heart enough to save my own head!” “Oh, Lily, Lily!” cried Helen, turning upon her champion, “my bonnie dear! it’s you that are too young to understand. Maybe he’s wrong, but he’s a kind of right, too. I am not blaming him for that. Many a woman keeps a man on the straight road almost without knowing, and him no worse of it nor her either. I could tell you things! And, Alick, I will not deceive you; if I had not been so young that time--if I had only had the courage--for there was no reason then, but just that I was a young lass, and frightened, and did not know---- There was no reason--then----” “Except that I was wild Alick Duff, that they said would settle to nothing, and not a man that would ever make salt to his kale.” Helen made no answer, but shook her head with a sigh. “How can I stand between you and him?” said Lily. “You take away my breath. I cannot understand the tongue you are speaking. It’s not good English nor Scots either, but another language. Are we angels, to make men good? and is it no matter what evil thing a woman takes into her heart if she can but make her man look like a whited sepulchre, and keep him, as you say, on the straight road? Is that what we were made for?” she cried in all the indignation of her youth.