“Believe! I know you are; and if everyone else fails, I will save you—I will, if I die for it! I pledge my soul’s salvation to that!”
“Alas! poor child, look at these thick walls and heavy locks; how could you help me?”
“I do not know yet how, but I do know that I will somehow!—as the Lord hears me, I will!”
“I take the disposition for the deed, and thank you as much as if you were able to keep your word; and above all, I bless you that you do me the justice to believe me guiltless. Ah, dear girl, I have been so tortured by the chaplain of this prison, who thinks me guilty, and urges me to confess. It is so distressing to be thought such a monster by so good a man.”
“Good, is he, and yet believes you guilty? Then he does not know a white dove from a black crow, which is tantamount to saying that his reverence is a fool, begging his pardon. But indeed most of the good people I know are fools. It seems as if nature were so impartial in the distribution of her gifts, that she seldom endows the same individual with both wisdom and goodness at the same time. There’s my three grannies, I mean the male granny and the two female grannies, all with such good hearts, but la! such weak heads. Anybody can whirl their minds round and round as the wind does the weathercocks. La! you shall judge for yourself. At the trial, when the prosecuting attorney-general was abusing you, he carried them along with himself until they believed you to be a perfect demon of iniquity. Then, when your counsel was defending you, he carried them along with himself, until they believed you to be a persecuted cherub. Then, when the judge summed up both sides, they were equally drawn by opposite opinions, and could not make up their minds whether you were an angel or a devil. Finally, when the jury brought in their verdict, they comfortably decided that you were the latter, and so went home happy to supper and bed. La! and we are requested always to respect our elders!”
“Certainly, dear Annella,” said Eudora, gravely.
“Wish they were always respectable, then.”
“Annella, you shock me, dear; old age must be reverenced.”
“Can’t help it. I haven’t got a particle of reverence in my composition; it is all owing to my barrack bringing up, I suppose.”
“I suppose it is, poor girl; but, Annella, you seem to have found friends.”