"Well, who do you suppose this sick girl is that Angelique and Alice have been helping take care of in the new hospital, or whatever you call it, that those Popish women have started up there?"
Now Mrs. Van Arsdel knew very well what Aunt Maria was coming to, but she only said, faintly,
"Well?"
"Its just that girl and no other, and a more impudent tramp and huzzy doesn't live."
"It really is very shocking," said Mrs. Van Arsdel.
"Shocking! well I should think it was, but that isn't all. Eva actually has taken this creature to her house, and is going to let her stay there."
"Oh, indeed?" said Mrs. Van Arsdel, faintly.
Now Mrs. Van Arsdel had listened sympathetically to Eva when, in glowing and tender words, she had avowed her intention of giving this help to a poor, bewildered mother, and this chance of recovery to an erring child, but in the sharp, nipping atmosphere of Aunt Maria's hard, dry, selfish common sense, the thing looked so utterly indefensible that she only breathed this faint inquiry.
"Yes," said Aunt Maria, "and it's all that Mary's art. She has been getting old and isn't what she was, and she means to get both her children saddled upon Eva, who is ignorant and innocent as a baby. Eva and her husband are no more fit to manage than two babes in the woods, and this set of people will make them no end of trouble. The girl is a perfect witch, and it will never do in the world. You ought to talk to her and tell her about the danger."
"But, Maria, I am not at all sure that it may not be Eva's duty to help Mary take care of her daughter."