"There you go, Aunt!" said Joe. "You are not doing what I asked you to do. I tell you there are reasons why I must see Mary Crawford to-day, and with no one, outside of this house, knowing that I do so."
"She is right, mother," said Susan. "She has told me what she means, and she ought to see her at once. Do help her—pray do!" These dear little innocent people who are happy in their own love-affairs, have a marvellous faculty of falling into the needs of others, and God bless them for it!
"But how?" asked Aunt Betsey.
"Oh, I don't know," said Susan. "Cousin Josey knows."
"I only know one plan to get her here without suspicion," said Josephine. "To do that we must tell a falsehood, but only for an hour."
"Oh, I cannot tell a falsehood," said the conscientious matron.
"Yes you can, or you can let us tell it," said the incorrigible. "Susy tells me that when you were sick, two years ago, Mary Crawford came to see you very often."
"She did, and she was a very kind nurse—Heaven bless her, even if she does not come to see us any more!" said the old lady.
"If she thought you sick, she would come again, I think," said Josephine. "Once here, my word for it that she would not be angry, but thank you, when she heard all that I have to tell her."
"I do not like it, my child!" said the straight-forward woman.