"What is the matter, mother?" said Mr. Hunt, in a tone not free from alarm.
"I am worried! That's the whole of it. I am downright vexed with you, Sarah, and surprised, too! What upon earth possessed you, child, to take that beggar into my kitchen to-day? After all I have told you and tried to learn you about these shameful impostors! I declare I was beat out when I heard it. And to throw away provisions and clothes upon such a brat!"
Lucy opened her great eyes at her sister, and Mr. Hunt looked perplexedly towards his favorite, for at heart he was partial to his second child.
"I took the poor creature to the fire, mother, because she was wet and cold; I fed her because she was hungry; I gave her some old, warm clothes of mine because hers were thin and soaked with rain."
"Poor little girl!" murmured Jeannie compassionately.
Sarah's hand closed instantly over the little fingers. The simple-hearted babe understood and sympathized with her motive and act better than did her wiser elders.
"Oh, I have no doubt she told a pitiful story, and shed enough tears to wet her through, if the rain had not done it already. If you listen to what these wretches say, and undertake to relieve their wants, you will soon have not a dress to your back nor a house over your head. Why didn't you send her to some society for the relief of the poor?"
"I did not know where to find one, ma'am."
This plain truth, respectfully uttered, confounded Mrs. Hunt for a second.
"Mrs. James is one of the managers in a benevolent association," she said, recovering herself. "You had ought to have given your beggar her address."