We struggle forth again, no doubt, bruised and bewildered.

We stare wildly about us, and discover--or, it may be, we never make the discovery--that it was not actually the sky that has tumbled down, but merely a frail structure of our own rearing, which never rose higher than the housetops, and has fallen because we founded it on nothing.

But the crash, and the affright and trouble, are as overwhelming, for the time, as if the catastrophe involved the whole moral world.

Remembering these things, let them suggest one generous motive for walking heedfully amid the defilement of earthly ways! Let us reflect, that the highest path is pointed out by the pure Ideal of those who look up to us, and who, if we tread less loftily, may never look so high again.
Hilda's situation was made infinitely more wretched by the necessity of Confining all her trouble within her own consciousness.

To this innocent girl, holding the knowledge of Miriam's crime within her tender and delicate soul, the effect was almost the same as if she herself had participated in the guilt.