Maggie was now longing to come back and prove by her devotion and obedience her true repentance, and Eva had decided to take her again. With two weddings impending in the family, she felt that Maggie's skill with the needle and her facility in matters pertaining to the female toilet might do good service, and might give her the sense of usefulness—the strength that comes from something really accomplished.
Her former experience made her careful, however, of those sore and sensitive conditions which attend the return to virtue in those who have sinned, and which are often severest where there is the most moral vitality, and she was anxious to prevent any repetition on Aunt Maria's part of former unwise proceedings. All the other habitués of the house partook of her own feeling; Alice and Angie were warmly interested for the poor girl; and if Aunt Maria could be brought to tolerate the arrangement, the danger of a sudden domiciliary visit from her attended with inflammatory results might be averted.
So Eva was very sweet and very persuasive in her manner to-day, for Aunt Maria had been devoting herself so entirely to the family service during the few weeks past, that she felt in some sort under a debt of obligation to her. The hardest person in the world to manage is a sincere, willful, pig-headed, pertinacious friend who will insist on doing you all sorts of kindnesses in a way that plagues about as much as it helps you.
But Eva was the diplomatist of the family; the one with the precise mixture of the suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re. She had hitherto carried her points with the good lady in a way that gave her great advantage, for Aunt Maria was one of those happily self-complacent people who do not fail to arrogate to themselves the after the most strenuous efforts, to hinder, and Eva's credit of all the good things that they have not been able, housekeeping and social successes, so far, were quite a feather in her cap. So, after dinner, Eva began with:
"Well, you know, Aunt Maria, what with these two weddings coming on, there is to be a terrible pressure of work—both coming the week after Easter, you see. So," she added quickly, "I think it quite lucky that I have found Maggie and got her back again, for she is one of the quickest and best seamstresses that I know of." Aunt Maria's brow suddenly darkened. Every trace of good-humor vanished from her face as she said:
"Now do tell me, Eva, if you are going to be such a fool, when you were once fairly quit of that girl, to bring her back into your family."
"Yes, Aunt, I thought it my Christian duty to take care of her, and see that she did not go to utter ruin."
"I don't know what you mean," said Aunt Maria. "I should say she had gone there now. Do you think it your duty to turn your house into a Magdalen asylum?"
"No, I do not; but I do think it is our duty to try to help and save this one girl whom we know—who is truly repentant, and who wants to do well."