"I beg your pardon, mother," he answered: "I must think about it. Why should it trouble you so! It is painfully annoying, but we have come under no obligation to them!" "No; but Alister!" "You cannot doubt Alister will do what is right!" "He will do what he thinks right!" "Is not that enough, mother?" "No," she answered angrily; "he must do the thing that is right." "Whether he knows it or not? Could he do the thing he thought wrong?" She was silent. "Mother dear," resumed Ian, "the only Way to get at what IS right is to do what seems right. Even if we mistake there is no other way!" "You would do evil that good may come! Oh, Ian!" "No, mother; evil that is not seen to be evil by one willing and trying to do right, is not counted evil to him. It is evil only to the person who either knows it to be evil, or does not care whether it be or not." "That is dangerous doctrine!" "I will go farther, mother, and say, that for Alister to do what you thought right, if he did not think it right himself--even if you were right and he wrong--would be for him to do wrong, and blind himself to the truth." "A man may be to blame that he is not able to see the truth," said the mother. "That is very true, but hardly such a man as Alister, who would sooner die than do the thing he believed wrong. But why should you take it for granted that Alister will think differently from you?" "We don't always think alike." "In matters of right and wrong, I never knew him or me think differently from you, mother!" "He is very fond of the girl!" "And justly. I never saw one more in earnest, or more anxious to learn." "She might well be teachable to such teachers!" "I don't see that she has ever sought to commend herself to either of us, mother. I believe her heart just opened to the realities she had never had shown her before. Come what may, she will never forget the things we have talked about." "Nothing would make me trust her!" "Why?" "She comes of an' abominable breed." "Is it your part, mother, to make her suffer for the sins of her fathers?" "I make her suffer!" "Certainly, mother--by changing your mind toward her, and suspecting her, the moment you learn cause to condemn her father." "The sins of the fathers are visited on the children!--You will not dispute that?' "I will grant more--that the sins of the fathers are often reproduced in the children. But it is nowhere said, 'Thou shalt visit the sins of the fathers on the children.' God puts no vengeance into our hands. I fear you are in danger of being unjust to the girl, mother!--but then you do not know her so well as we do!" "Of course not! Every boy understands a woman better than his mother!" "The thing is exceedingly annoying, mother! Let us go and find Alister at once!" "He will take it like a man of sense, I trust!"