"He meant it for me, Mrs. Walters," said Georgiana, fondling our
neighbor's hand, and looking at me with an awful rebuke.

"I meant it for myself," I said. "And now it is doing its best to make
me feel like a Pharisee. So I hasten to add that there are other rooms
in the house in which it will be allowed human nature to assert itself
in this long-established, hereditary, and ineradicable right. Our
guests have only to intimate that they can no longer restrain their
propensities and we will conduct them to another chamber. Mrs. Moss
and I will occasionally make use of these chambers ourselves, to
relieve the tension of too much virtue. But it is seriously our idea
to have one room in the house where we shall feel safe, both as
respects ourselves and as respects others, from the discomfort of
evil-speaking. As long as these walls stand or we dwell in them, this
is to be the room of charity and kindness to all creatures."

Although we exerted ourselves, conversation flagged during the visit of
Mrs. Walters. Several times she began to speak, but, with a frightened
look at the fireplace, dropped into a cough, or cleared her throat in a
way that called to mind the pleasing habit of Sir Roger de Coverly in
the Gardens of Gray's Inn.

Later in the evening other guests came. Upon each the law of that
fireside was lightly yet gravely impressed. They were in the main the
few friends I know in whom such an outward check would call for the
least inner restraint; nevertheless, on what a footing of confidence it
placed our conversation! To what a commanding level we were safely
lifted! For nothing so releases the best powers of the mind as the
understanding that the entire company are under bond to keep the peace