virtue in every futile effort toward the right."

Mary bent her head as she walked along in thought.

"What you have said is the only approach to a rule for knowing and
doing the right I have ever heard. Now what do you think of me as a
flatterer? But it will do no good; the bad is in me too strong; it
always does itself before I can apply any rule, or even realize what
is coming." And again she shook her head with a bewitching little look
of trouble.

"Pardon me, your highness; but there is no bad _in_ you. It has been
put _on_ you by others, and is all on the outside; there is none of it
in your heart at all. That evil which you think comes out of you,
simply falls from you; your heart is all right, or I have greatly
misjudged you." He was treating her almost as if she were a child.

"I fear, Master Brandon, you are the most adroit flatterer of all,"
said Mary, shaking her head and looking up at him with a side glance,
"people have deluged me with all kinds of flattery--I have the
different sorts listed and labeled--but no one has ever gone to the
extravagant length of calling me good. Perhaps they think I do not
care for that; but I like it best. I don't like the others at all. If
I am beautiful or not, it is as God made me, and I have nothing to do
with it, and desire no credit, but if I could only be good it might be
my own doing, perhaps, and I ought to have praise. I wonder if there
is really and truly any good in me, and if you have read me aright."
Then looking up at him with a touch of consternation: "Or are you
laughing at me?"