down long ago."



CONSCIENCE



"Conscience," said I, "her conscience would have told her."

"Yes," said my father. "The strongest amongst the many objections to
the Roman Catholic doctrine of confession is that it weakens our
dependence on the conscience. If we seek for an external command to do
what ought to be done in obedience to that inward monitor, whose voice
is always clear if we will but listen, its authority will gradually be
lost, and in the end it will cease to speak."

"Conscience," said my grandmother musingly (turning to my father). "You
will remember Phyllis Eyre? She was one of my best friends, and it is
now two years since she died, unmarried. She was once governess to the
children of Sir Robert Walsh, but remained in the house as companion to
Lady Walsh long after her pupils had grown up. She was, in fact, more
than a companion, for Lady Walsh trusted her and loved her. She was by
birth a lady; she had been well educated, and, like her mistress, she
was devoutly and evangelically pious. She was also very handsome, and
this you may well believe, for, as you know, she was handsome as an old
woman, stately and erect, with beautiful, undimmed eyes. When Evelina
Walsh, the eldest daughter, was about one and twenty, Charles Fysshe,
the young heir to the Fysshe property, came to stay with her brother,
and Phyllis soon discovered, or thought she discovered, that he was in