For you I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this morning,
and saw you were closely attentive: your thoughts never seemed to wander while
Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you. Now, mine continually rove
away: when I should be listening to Miss Scatcherd, and collecting all she says
with assiduity, often I lose the very sound of her voice; I fall into a sort of
dream. Sometimes I think I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I hear
round me are the bubbling of a little brook which runs through Deepden, near our
house; - then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be wakened; and,
having heard nothing of what was read for listening to the visionary brook, I
have no answer ready.«
    »Yet how well you replied this afternoon.«
    »It was mere chance: the subject on which we had been reading had interested
me. This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was wondering how a man
who wished to do right could act so unjustly and unwisely as Charles the First
sometimes did; and I thought what a pity it was that, with his integrity and
conscientiousness, he could see no farther than the prerogatives of the crown.
If he had but been able to look to a distance, and see how what they call the
spirit of the age was tending! Still, I like Charles - I respect him - I pity
him, poor murdered king! Yes, his enemies were the worst: they shed blood they
had no right to shed. How dared they kill him!«
    Helen was talking to herself now: she had forgotten I could not very well
understand her - that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject she
discussed. I recalled her to my level.
    »And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?«
    »No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something to
say which is newer than my own reflections: her language is singularly agreeable
to me, and the information she communicates is often just what I wished to
gain.«
    »Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?«
    »Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me.
There is no merit in such goodness.«
    »A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever
desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and
unjust, the wicked
