"My mother has been telling Patience so to-day. She, my mother, is convinced now that very exaggerated blame was cast upon Anna. It was foolish of her, of course, to fall into the habit of running to the field; but the locking out might have happened to anyone. My mother told me this not half an hour ago. She has seen and talked to Anna frequently this last day or two, and has drawn her own positive deductions. My mother is vexed with herself for having fallen into the popular condemnation."
"Ay!" uttered Samuel Lynn. "There is condemnation abroad, then? I thought there was."
"People will come to their senses in good time," was William's answer. "Never doubt it."
The Quaker raised his feeble hand, and laid it upon William's. "The Ashleys—have they blamed her?"
"I fear they have," was the only reply he could make, in his strict truth.
"Then, William, thee go to them. Go to them now, and set them right."
He was already going, for he was engaged to the Ashleys that evening. Between Henry Ashley, the men at East's, and his own studies, which he would not wholly neglect, William's evenings had a tolerably busy time of it. He had assumed Samuel Lynn's place in the manufactory by Mr. Ashley's orders, head of all things, under the master. Cyril ground his teeth at this; he looked upon it as a slight to himself; but Cyril had no power to alter it.
William found Mr. and Mrs. Ashley alone. Mary was out. He sat with them for a few minutes, talking of Anna, and then rose to go to Henry. "How is he this evening?" he inquired.
"Ill and very fractious," was Mr. Ashley's reply. "William, you have great influence over him. I wish you could persuade him to give way less. He is not ill enough, so far as we can see, to keep his room; but we cannot get him out of it."
Henry was in one of his depressed moods, excessively dispirited and irritable. "Oh! so you have come!" he burst forth as William entered. "I should be ashamed to neglect a sick fellow as you neglect me. If I were well and strong, and you ill, you would find it different."