"To whom did you sell out?"
"To James J. Sheldon."
"Ah! He is a friend of mine. I can easily persuade him to allow you to stay. He could do nothing to the house in this cold weather."
"Still, it isn't likely if we find the money that it will amount to anything; and, for my part, I wish I was dead."
Hereupon ensued fresh bursts of tears all around.
"My dear," asked Mrs. Grey, seriously, "where should you be if you were dead?"
"I could not be worse off than I am now," was the sullen answer.
"You must excuse the way she talks," said Mrs. Grosgrain. "She never had no trouble before, and it sets her ag'inst everything. I'm older, and don't feel so bad. If it wasn't for seeing the girls so full of trouble, I should say I hadn't felt so comfortable these twenty year."
Poor Mrs. Grosgrain, do you know the reason? You have been snubbed more than "twenty year" by these four young women, and now they let you alone, and you are jogging on in such English as you please; and what a relief it is! Take an old hat, and the more you brush it, the worse it looks. No amount of labor could make a real lady out of one whose instincts were not refined. It was not going to be the hardship to her to descend to what she sprang from, as to these girls who had never been there with her. To make a long story short, however, Mrs. Grey never rested till she had found employment for them all. At first their pride fell flat, and they struggled against their fate in a way that put all her energy to the test; but contact with her strong and steadfast nature at last told upon them all. In the strictest sense of the word, she rescued them from the ruin to which prosperity was leading them; or, rather, she fell in with the Providential plan for their rescue, and helped carry it out.