quite enough of the leaven of unrighteousness to save her, at a
pinch--for Laurence was entirely right, she entirely wrong. Yet--she
made him apologize before she consented to forgive him, and he did it
gratefully. She allowed him to understand how magnanimous she was in
thus pardoning him for her own naughtiness, and he was deeply
impressed, as men-creatures should be under such circumstances. Such
wisdom, and she but a child! I was enchanted!"

"Good heavens! Surely, Mother, I misunderstand you! Surely you
reproved her!"

"Reprove her?" My mother's voice was full of astonishment. "Why should
I reprove her? She was perfectly right!"

"Perfectly right? Why, you said--indeed, I assure you, you said that
Laurence had been entirely right, she entirely wrong!"

"Oh, _that!_ I see; well, as for that, she was."

"Then, surely--"

"My son, a woman who is in the wrong is entirely right when she makes
the man apologize," said my mother firmly. "That is the Law, fixed as
the Medes' and the Persians', and she who forgets or ignores it is
ground between the upper and the nether millstones. Mary Virginia
remembered and obeyed. When she grows up you will all of you adore her
madly. Why, then, should she be reproved?"

I have never been able to reflect upon Laurence getting his head
bumped and then gratefully apologizing to the darling shrew who did