you are not to blame, my dear. From the first you have acted in simple good faith, in accord with your excellent Suffolk Colthurst instincts; and they are very safe things to go by as a rule.
It was right and kind of you to help dear Adela to take up the problem of a young man who had rather more money than was good for him, and who would be all the better for having a nice sensible girl to spend it for him. And we are free to admit that Adela was capable of making herself uncommonly useful in that way if only she would have brought her mind to bear upon the subject.
Please don't jump to such hasty conclusions, says a Feminine Reader at this point—alas! that we have so few. When sir, you suggest that dear Adela was not allowing her mind to bear upon the subject of Mr. Philip, you merely prove how nearly human ignorance of the crude masculine variety can come to the precipice of a very unsafe conclusion.
The fact that dear Adela wore sequins, says this wise lady, when she knew that Mr. Philip thought they did not do justice to her charms, and the fact that she was at pains to let him know that her afternoon at Queen's Hall had tired her so much that she now preferred salted almonds to general conversation, should make it clear to the meanest intelligence that dear Adela had a thinking part. If, as you say, proceeds our mentor, this
