"That was Aunt Naomi Dexter," she remarked. "She's always poking round."
"Miss Dexter is one of the kindest women alive," I said, "though she is a little odd in her manner sometimes."
"She said she hoped I'd found things bad enough to give me a hankerin' for something better," went on Julia with increasing bitterness. "God! How does she think I'd get anything better? What does she know about it, anyway?"
"There, there, Jule," interposed Mrs. Bagley in a sort of professional tone, "now don't go to gettin' excited and rampageous. You know she brought you some rippin' flannel for the baby. Them pious folks has to talk, but, Lord, nobody minds it, and you hadn't ought ter. They don't really mean nothing much."
It seemed to be time to interpose, and I forbade Julia to talk, sent Mrs. Bagley off to sleep in the one other bedroom, and settled down for the night's watching. The patient fell asleep at last, and I was left to care for the fire and the poor little pathetic, forlorn, dreadful baby. The child was swathed in Aunt Naomi's "rippin' flannel," and I fell into baffling reflections in regard to human life. After all, I had no right to judge this poor broken girl lying there much more in danger than she could dream. What do I know of the intolerable life that has not self-respect, not even cleanliness of mind or body? Society and morality have so fenced us about and so guarded us that we have rather to try to get outside than to struggle to keep in; and what do we know of the poor wretches fighting for life with wild beasts in the open? I am so glad I do not believe that sin is what one actually does, but is the proportion between deeds and opportunity. How carefully Father explained this to me when I was not much more than a child, and how strange it is that so many people cannot seem to understand it! If I thought the moral law an inflexible thing like a human statute, for which one was held responsible arbitrarily and whether he knows the law or not, I should never be able to endure the sense of injustice. Of course men have to be arbitrary, because they can see only tangible things and must judge by outward acts; but if this were true of a deity he would cease to be a deity at all, and be simply a man with unlimited power to do harm.
April 7. I found myself so running aground last night in metaphysics that it seemed just as well to go to bed, diary or no diary. I was besides too tired to write down my interview with Mrs. Webbe.
I was just about to go home for a bath and a nap after watching that first night, when, without even knocking, Mrs. Deacon Webbe opened the outside door. I was in the kitchen, and so met her before she got further. Naturally I was surprised to see her at six o'clock in the day.
"Good-morning," I said.
"I knew you were here yesterday," she said by way of return for my greeting, "but I thought I'd get here before you came back this morning."