respects it the most."

"Yes, the safest and also the most cowardly!" retorted Miss Wiggin.
"Supposing the law required you to do something which you personally
regarded not only as morally wrong but detestable, would you do it?"

"It wouldn't!" protested Tutt with a grimace. "The law is the perfection
of reason."

"But I am entitled, am I not, to suppose, for purposes of argument, that
it might?" she inquired caustically. "And I say that our sense of honor
is the most precious thing we've got. It's our duty to respect our
institutions and obey the law whether we like it or not, unless it
conflicts with our conscience, in which case we ought to defy it and
take the consequences!"

"Dear me!" mocked Tutt. "And be burned at the stake?"

"If necessary; yes!"

"I don't rightly get all this!" remarked Bonnie. "Me for the lee side of
the law, every time!"

"It's highly theoretical," commented Tutt. "As usual with our
discussions."

"Not so theoretical as you might think!" interrupted his senior,
hastening to reenforce Miss Wiggin. "Nobody can deny that to be true to
oneself is the highest principle of human conduct, and that ''tis man's
perdition to be safe when for the truth he ought to die.' That's why we