"The wise and good men think so, or they would not have him sent there," said she. "But might he not be better always afterwards?" I asked. "The people cannot trust that he would," she said. "Even if he promised ever so much and intended it, they could not at once trust him." "Is it too late then for him to be forgiven?" I said. "Too late, it seems, for men to forgive him," said she, very gravely. "But never too late for God?" I said. "No, never too late for God," said she, slowly. "Because God knows when we really intend to give up sinning, even when we can do nothing to show it to men. So it is never too late for Him to take His prodigals home to his bosom." "Then I can ask for that," said I. And I did. But that night there sank down on my heart for the first time (the first time of so many in the solemn years that, followed) the terrible words, "Too late;" the terrible sense that an hour may come when, if repentance towards God is still possible, reparation to man and mercy from man are possible no longer. This fervour of patriotic life which animated us all at Netherby made us rather hard, I am afraid, on Cousin Placidia. Throughout the year, after our sojourn at Davenant Hall, she had tried Roger and me (and I believe also secretly Aunt Dorothy) very seriously by becoming in her way exceedingly religious. One winter morning when Roger and I were busy with my father about our Italian lessons at one end of the hall, the following discussion took place between Placidia and Aunt Dorothy over their spinning near the hearth. Placidia had seen, she informed Aunt Dorothy, the vanity of all things under the sun, the folly of pride, and the wickedness of all worldly pomp, and she washed decidedly to take her place "on the Lord's side," to work out betimes her own salvation, and to secure for herself an abundant entrance into the kingdom. Aunt Dorothy spoke of the heart being deceitful, and hoped Placidia would make sure of her foundation. Placidia rejoined with some slight resentment as to any doubts of her orthodoxy, that she humbly trusted she knew as well as any one, that every one's heart was indeed deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, that is, every ungodly person's; indeed one only needed to look around in any direction to see it. Aunt Dorothy replied that, for her part, she found her own heart still very ingenious in deceiving her, and in need of a great deal of daily watching.