So we have seen poor Maggie, with despair and bitterness in her heart, wandering, on a miserable cold day, through the Christmas rejoicings of New York, on the very verge of going back to courses that end in unutterable degradation and misery; and yet, how little it was anybody's business to seek or to save her.
"So," said Mrs. Wouvermans, in a tone of exultation, when she heard of Maggie's flight, "I hope, I'm sure, Eva's had enough of her fine ways of managing! Miss Maggie's off, just as I knew she'd be. That girl is a baggage! And now, of course, nothing must do but Mary must be off to look for her, and then Eva is left with all her house on her hands. I should think this would show her that my advice wasn't so altogether to be scorned."
Now, it is not to be presumed that Mrs. Wouvermans really was so cruel as to exult in the destruction of Maggie, and the perplexity and distress of her mother, or in Eva's domestic discomfort; yet there was something very like this in the tone of her remarks.
Whence is the feeling of satisfaction which we have when things that we always said we knew, turn out just as we predicted? Had we really rather our neighbor would be proved a thief and a liar than to be proved in a mistake ourselves? Would we be willing to have somebody topple headlong into destruction for the sake of being able to say, "I told you so"?
Mrs. Wouvermans did not ask herself these pointed questions, and so she stirred her faultless coffee without stirring up a doubt of her own Christianity—for, like you and me, Mrs. Wouvermans held herself to be an ordinarily good Christian.
Gentle, easy Mrs. Van Arsdel heard this news with acquiescence. "Well, girls, so that Maggie's run off and settled the question; and, on the whole, I'm not sorry, for that ends Eva's responsibility for her; and, after all, I think your aunt was half right about that matter. One doesn't want to have too much to do with such people."
"But, mamma," said Alice, "it seems such a dreadful thing that so young a girl, not older than I am, should be utterly lost."
"Yes, but you can't help it, and such things are happening all the time, and it isn't worth while making ourselves unhappy about it. I'm sure Eva acted like a little saint about it, and the girl can have no one to blame but herself."
"I know," said Alice; "Eva told me about it. It was Aunt Maria, with her usual vigor and activity, who precipitated the catastrophe. Eva had just got the girl into good ways, and all was going smoothly, when Aunt Maria came in and broke everything up. I must say, I think Aunt Maria is a nuisance."
"Oh, Alice, how can you talk so, when you know that your aunt is thinking of nothing so much as how to serve and advance you girls?"