“My dear Mrs. Paul,” he answered, with quick gravity, “there must be reserves--except with God. The human soul is solitary. But for confession, that is different; justice and reparation sometimes demand it; but, again, justice and courage sometimes forbid it. Unless it is necessary, it is flabby vanity. That’s why I said it was bad for the mind.” “Well,” said Amy, with some spirit, “I don’t believe in taking respect, or--or love, on false pretenses. If I had ever done any dreadful thing, I should want to confess; good gracious, for the mere comfort of it I should have to! It would be like walking on a volcano to keep a secret.” William West went over to the table where she was writing, and, finding a place among the clutter of presents to lean his elbow, sat down and looked at her with good-humored amusement. “Where are you going to draw the line? How far back are you going in confessing your sins? Please don’t tell me that you slapped your nurse when you were three. It would be a horrible shock, and make me very unhappy to discover such a crime.” “I shall go all the way back,” said Amy, with decision; “if I had done anything wrong, I mean very wrong, I should tell you,--if I had only been a year old!” The minister laughed. “A desperate villain of one year!” he said; but as he spoke a puzzled look came into his eyes. “I think,” Amy Townsend proceeded, “that honor and fairness demand speaking out. And as for making some one else unhappy,” her voice dropped a little, and the color came up into her face, “where people love each other, they have a right to unhappiness.” “Listen to Amy clamoring for unhappiness!” John Paul commented. “Don’t worry, my child; you’ll get your share. There’s enough to go round, I’ve noticed.” Mrs. Paul laughed, but a note of reality had come into the careless talk that gave her a sense of being a third party. “John, you are flippant,” she said; “come, let’s leave these two poor things alone; they’re dying to get rid of us. And besides, if Amy is going to confess her sins since she was one year old, it will take time.” “That I consider a most uncalled for reference to my twenty-seven years,” Amy retorted; “and besides, I’ve two more notes to write.” “And I must go home,” William West said, rising in a preoccupied manner. “Why--but I thought you were going to stay to dinner!” Mrs. Paul protested, with dismay. “Oh, you must stay to dinner,” Amy urged. But her lover was resolute. Nor did he, as usual, try to lure her out into the hall that he might make his adieus. He said good-night, stopped a moment to discuss with his senior warden something about the appropriation for repairs at St. James, and then, with a sober abstraction deepening in his face, went home through the delicate June dusk, which was full of the scent of the roses that grow behind the garden walls of the old-fashioned part of Mercer. III