“And so I am,” said Clare, hastily brushing away the tears. “I know he is good--he is better than me; but he puts me all wrong notwithstanding. He will not see things as I do. His nature is always leading him the other way. He has no sort of feeling--no--Oh! I don’t know how to describe it. He puts me all wrong.” “You must not indulge such thoughts,” said the Rector, with a certain mild authority which did not misbecome him. “He shows a great deal of right feeling, it appears to me. And we must not discuss Edgar’s qualities. He is Edgar, and that is enough.” “You don’t need to tell me that,” cried Clare, with sudden offence; and then she stopped, and controlled herself. “I should like to go and see this old Scotchwoman,” she added, after a moment’s pause. What she had said was true, though she was sorry for having said it. Edgar, with his strange ways of thinking, his spontaneousness, and freedom of mind, had put her all wrong. She had been secure and certain in her own system of life so long as everybody thought with her, and the bonds of education and habit were unbroken. But now, though she was still as strong in her Ardenism as ever, an uneasy, half-angry feeling that all the world did not agree with her--nay, that the person of most importance to her in the world did not agree with her--oppressed Clare’s mind, and made her wretched. It is hard always to bear such a blow, struck at one’s youthful convictions. It is intolerable at first, till the young sufferer learns that other people have really a right to their opinions, and that it is possible to disagree with him or her and yet not be wicked. Clare could not deny that Edgar’s different views were maintained with great gentleness and candour towards herself--that they were held by one who was not an evil-minded revolutionary, but in every other respect all that she wished her brother to be. But she felt his eyes upon her when she said and did many little things which a few weeks ago she would have thought most right and natural; and even while she chafed at the tacit disapprobation, a secret self-criticism, which she ignored and struggled against, stole into the recesses of her soul. She would not acknowledge nor allow it to be possible; but yet it was there. The natural consequence was that all her little haughtinesses, her airs of superiority, her distinctions between the Ardens and their class and all the rest of the world, sharpened and became more striking. She was half-conscious that she exaggerated her own opinions, painted the lights whiter and the shadows more profound, in involuntary reaction against the new influences which began to affect her. She had not noticed the Pimpernels, though she knew them well by sight, and all about them; but she had no active feeling of enmity towards them until that unfortunate day when they ventured to call, and Edgar, in his ignorance, received them as if they had been the family of a Duke. Since then Clare had come