MERCY AND SELF-DENIAL.
The Sabbath morning rose clear and bright, Nature looking all the fairer for the tears which she had shed on the previous night. As Isa Gritton was completing her toilet, Hannah brought in a note. Isa instantly recognized the handwriting; and as this missive had evidently not passed through the post, but been brought by a messenger, the young lady, with some anxiety, broke open the envelope and read its contents:—
Saturday Evening.
Dear Miss Gritton,—I was on the way to Axe, but felt so ill with feverish headache that I could not proceed beyond this wretched little inn (the Black Bear), which, as I hear, is not ten minutes’ walk from your house. Could you come over and see me?—Yours,
Cora Madden.
“Who brought this?” inquired Isa of Hannah.
“Mrs. Taylor, the landlady of the ‘Black Bear.’ She’s a-waiting below, and she says that she wants to see you partic’lar.”
Isa hastened down-stairs, and found in the hall the landlady of the roadside public-house, which had been dignified with the name of an inn on the strength of the single guest-chamber which it held above the tap-room. Cora Madden must have felt ill indeed before she accepted such shelter. The landlady was a woman of a coarse and vulgar stamp, deeply pitted with small-pox, and with a strong scent of spirits about her. Isa felt repugnance at the idea of paying a visit at her house.