be so bad, perhaps, as if he had done it for himself. To save the Horsburghs and the Aitkens from ruin, even at the expense of a lie, of teaching them to lie---- Oh no, no, Elsie cried, the tears pouring over her Bible. It might not be so bad in one way, but it was worse in another. It was dictating a lie to others as well as uttering it himself. Was papa guilty of that? Was that what it meant, that struggle long ago, the questioning and the self-conflict? Oh no, no, she cried to herself, oh no, no! Neither for himself, neither for others could he have done that. And yet what did it mean? There is a point beyond which such a question cannot go. She had no way of settling it. The doubt burned her like fire, it penetrated her heart like a knife: but at last she was obliged, baffled, exhausted, and heart-broken, to leave it alone. Perhaps she never would know what the real meaning was, either of the parable in the book or the still more urgent parable of human conduct here half revealed to her. But there was at least something that she could understand, the old lesson of the house, the teaching of her childhood, to guard her father from all assault, from anything that could disturb his mind or his life. It was not the simple formula now of not making a noise lest it should disturb papa. It was something a great deal more important, not so easily understood, not so easy to perform, but still more absolute and binding. Not to disturb papa, not to allow him to be disturbed, to defend his door, if need were, with her life. To put her arm into the hoops of the bolt like Katherine Douglas in the history--that rash maiden whom every Scots girl holds high, and would emulate if she could. Elsie was faintly aware that this statement of the cause was a little nonsensical, that she would not be called upon to sacrifice her life or to break her arm in defence of her father; but she was very young, and full of passionate feeling, and her thoughts formed into the language of generous extravagance, in spite of herself. What was it really, after the outburst of that fond resolution, that she had to do?