'You think I will—and you think I won't,' said Hazel. 'Is that it?' 'Not at all. Yes, half of it, the first. I think you will, as you say. But I never want you to act contrary to your own feeling; and if I can help it, I will not let you.' Hazel laughed a laugh of frank amusement. 'Always excepting,' she said, 'the few occasions when my "feeling" does not answer the helm! You see,' she added, growing grave again, 'I have all my life bought just what I liked, and as much as I liked, and _because_ I liked.' 'Precisely my own principle. I hope you will do it all the rest of your life, duchess.' 'Because you hope my likings will be just right. Yes, but how shall I know? For to begin with, they are as wayward as a west wind.' 'Let us see. What is your motive of choice in buying?' 'Just that I said—what I like. I can tell in a minute what suits me.' 'Beauty, harmony, and fitness, being your guiding objects.' 'Well.' "Well. You cannot be too beautiful, or too harmonious, for my delight.' Hazel sat silent again, thinking, puzzling. 'I wonder if I understand you?' she said. 'O I have had plenty of comments made on me before,—I think I was a sort of shock to some people. Good people, you know,—at least the best I saw; nice quiet old ladies, and proper behaved young ones. But then—' 'Go on,' said Rollo smiling. 'Well, I used to think they did not know _what_ they were afraid of. Twenty duck shot would not have mattered, if only the gun had been wrapped in green baize. It was just the glitter of lock, stock, and barrel. Even Prim would have been easy if I had worn things in a heap.' 'You must just reverse those conditions to express my feeling. I believe we ought to make ourselves as beautiful as we can, for the highest reasons. Only,—and here perhaps I shall touch the hidden point you have been feeling after,—there is one other thing which comes first.' She looked up, waiting his answer. He looked deep into her eyes as he gave it, with a slight smile at the same time that was very sweet. 'Do you remember?—"Seek _first_ the kingdom of God." Therefore, before even beauty and harmony. So, if I can secure these with one dollar, don't you see I must not spend two? The Lord wants the other dollar. He _may_ want both. But generally, for all the purposes of use and influence, I believe he means us carefully to make ourselves, so far as we may, lovely to look at.' Hazel clasped and unclasped her fingers, working out her problem in the fire again. 'His kingdom in all the world,' she said slowly. 'The harmony having its keynote from heaven, and then finding its accord in all one's earthly life. I suppose that was what David meant—"O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory." '—She laid her head down upon her arms and said no more. 'Is the tangle out?' said Rollo gently after a minute.