"News, why yes," answered Bessy, tossing a note to her brother across the deal-table at which she was cutting the loaf. "The carrier brought this to-day from the town. There's Norah all agog to go to the workhouse!"
"To the workhouse," repeated Ned, with a merry laugh. "She's not likely to go there, I hope, while she has two hands and I have one that can work to keep her out of it."
"Just read her note—oh! that's not the one—but you'd better read both; the matron's will show you the whole matter. It's the most ridiculous notion as ever I heard of in all my born days." And with an angry toss of the head, Bessy went off to the kettle to fill her black tea-pot, while Ned read to himself Norah's note.
"Dear Mother,—Mistress says I may have the time, and she will pay herself for my coach, if you, or some other respectable woman, will go to the workhouse with me on Friday, but I must not go by miself. Do, do agree, dear mother. I cannot be happy till I have seen poor Sophy. Your dutiful child, Norah." And there was added, on a blotted line below, "if you can't go with me, p'raps my dear teacher wood."
"Well, Bessy, are you going?" quietly asked Ned Franks as he laid down the note.
"Going!" repeated Bessy, in her shrillest tone. "I must come to a pretty pass indeed afore I darken the door of a workhouse. I think the girl's gone crazed. As if I could give up half-a-day to go dancing over the country, and in middle of winter too. If it had been for a summer treat, a pic-nic, or fair, or something like that, 'twould have been a different matter. But to visit a pauper in a workhouse!" Bessy banged down the kettle on the hob, and carried the steaming tea-pot to the table.
"Now to my mind," said Ned, "'tis better to visit a messmate in trouble, whether in palace or poorhouse, whether weather be fair or foul, than to go on any mere pleasure cruise. She's a true-hearted lass, little Norah, not to turn her back on a friend."
"Why, uncle," exclaimed Dan, speaking with his mouth full, and that twinkle in his small black eyes, which gave a weasel-like slyness to his face, "to think of you, of all men living, standing up for Sophy Puller. Why the very first thing that you said when you heard of her doings was, that she was no true friend to our Norah."
"A sly, deceitful, dishonest, good-for-nothing minx," exclaimed Bessy, "who would have got my girl into all sorts of mischief. A workhouse is too good for the like of her, a great deal too good say I;" and Mrs. Peele poured out the tea with an air of virtuous indignation.
Ned Franks could not help thinking of the proverb, "they who live in glass-houses should not throw stones." His half-sister's own notions of truth and honesty were little more strict than those of poor Sophy, while she had not had the excuse of having been brought up by a worthless parent. How far more easy it is to condemn sin in others, than to subdue it in ourselves! Ned Franks was very silent during the meal. The idea of a young, misguided creature, suffering and blind in a workhouse, filled his kindly heart with such compassion as the good Samaritan felt for the wounded man by the way-side. Franks wished with all his soul that he could carry comfort to the poor girl, but felt that the task was not a suitable one for a young man like himself.