But I'll get Mr.Millward to talk to you about it:--he'll tell you the consequences;--he'll set it before you as plain as the day;--and tell you what you ought to do, and all about it;--and, I don't doubt, he'll be able to convince you in a minute.' 'No occasion to trouble the vicar,' said Mrs.Graham, glancing at me--I suppose I was smiling at my mother's unbounded confidence in that worthy gentleman--'Mr.Markham here thinks his powers of conviction at least equal to Mr.Millward's.

If I hear not him, neither should I be convinced though one rose from the dead, he would tell you.

Well, Mr.
Markham, you that maintain that a boy should not be shielded from evil, but sent out to battle against it, alone and unassisted--not taught to avoid the snares of life, but boldly to rush into them, or over them, as he may--to seek danger, rather than shun it, and feed his virtue by temptation,--would you-- ?' 'I beg your pardon, Mrs.Graham--but you get on too fast.

I have not yet said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life,--or even wilfully to seek temptation for the sake of exercising his virtue by overcoming it;--I only say that it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe;--and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hothouse, tending it carefully night and day, and shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements, and not even sheltered from the shock of the tempest.' 'Granted;--but would you use the same argument with regard to a girl ?' 'Certainly not.' 'No; you would have her to be tenderly and delicately nurtured, like a hot-house plant--taught to cling to others for direction and support, and guarded, as much as possible, from the very knowledge of evil.

But will you be so good as to inform me why you make this distinction?
Is it that you think she has no virtue ?' 'Assuredly not.' 'Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation;--and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith.