"Well, you see, auntie, there are two ways of looking at it. When you first come across the poem or the picture which perpetuates the sentiment that slew the girl, and beautifies it, you feel a glow all over, and fancy you would like to imitate her, and think that you would deserve great credit for it if you did. But when you come to consider, there is nothing very noble, after all, in a hopeless passion for an elderly man of the world who is past being benefited by it, even if he could reciprocate it. Elaine should have married a man of her own age, and made him happy. She would have done some good in her time so, and been saved from setting us a bad example. I think it a sin to make unwholesome sentiments attractive." "Then Lancelot does not charm you?" "No," said Evadne thoughtfully. "I should have preferred the king." "Ah, yes. Because he was the nobler, the more ideal man?" "No, not exactly," Evadne answered. "But because he was the more wholesome." "My dear child, are you speaking literally?" "Yes, auntie." "Good Heavens!" Mrs. Orton Beg ejaculated softly. "The times _have_ changed." "Yes, we know more now," Evadne answered tranquilly. "You are fulfilling the promise of your youth, Evadne," her aunt remarked after a thoughtful pause. "I remember reading a fairy tale of Jean Ingelow's aloud to you children in the nursery long ago. I forget the name of it, but it was the one into which 'One morning, oh, so early,' comes; and you started a controversy as to whether, speaking of the dove, when the lark said 'Give us glory,' she should have made answer, 'Give us peace' or 'peas.' The latter, you maintained, as being the more natural, and the most sensible." "I must have been a horrid little prig in those days," said Evadne, smiling. "But, auntie, there can be no peace without plenty. And I think I would rather be a sensible realist than a foolish idealist. You mean that you think me too much of a utilitarian, do you not?" "You are in danger, I think." "Utilitarianism is Bentham's _greatest happiness principle_, is it not?" Evadne asked. "Yes--greatest human happiness," her aunt replied. "Well, I don't know how that can be dangerous in principle. But, of course, I know nothing of such questions practically. Only I do seem to perceive that you must rest on a solid basis of real advantages before you can reach up to ideal perfection with any chance of success." "You seem to be very wide awake to-night, Evadne," Mrs. Orton Beg rejoined. "This is the first I have heard of your peculiar views."