"Now if she had only lived up to the Vicar of Wakefield's motto--instead of mooning over Lancelot's old shield, and embroidering things for it, and acting as if it were something too precious for ordinary mortals to touch--if she'd batted it into the corner, or made mud pies on it, to show that she was inflexible, fortune _would_ have changed in her favor.

Sir Lancelot would have had some respect for her common sense." Mary, who felt that the remark was addressed to her, crimsoned painfully.

Rob took up the question, and his opinion was the same as Phil's and Malcolm's.

Long after the conversation passed to other topics, Mary puzzled over the fact that the three knightliest-looking men she knew, the three who, she supposed, would make ideal lovers, had laughed at one of the most romantic situations in all poesy, and had agreed that Elaine was silly and sentimental.

Maybe, she thought with burning cheeks, maybe they would think she was just as bad if they knew how she had admired Elaine and imagined herself in her place, and actually cried over the poor maiden who loved so fondly and so truly that she could die of a broken heart.
When she reflected that Lloyd, too, had agreed with them, she began to think that her own ideals might need reconstructing.