“I have finished my book, and am quite ready to attend you; so now tell me, how did you find your friend?”
This turned the current of Alma’s thoughts, and she answered:
“Fearfully changed, mamma—so thin, so pale, so care-worn, you would never have known her.”
“She accepted the loan without reluctance?” asked the lady.
“No, mamma, there was much hesitation; but I used the arguments with which you had provided me, and I assured her that those who sent her the money had a personal interest in her acquittal that made it quite right they should bear their share in the cost of her defence.”
“You were right; but how did she meet this explanation?”
“With the confiding faith of a grateful child—only anxious to know the names of her benefactors, that she might mention them in her prayers.”
“Why do you say benefactors, when there was but me?” inquired the lady.
“Mamma, when we speak of anyone in the third person, without wishing even to divulge their sex, we say ‘they,’ because we have no third person singular of the common gender. And because I used the pronoun ‘they,’ she fancied there was more than one, and spoke of her benefactors,” answered Alma, blushing deeply at the necessary reservation.
“Well, but you did not give the name?”