"That can't be."
"It is so. When I told Jenny that I had been a very wicked girl, I meant so."
"I'm sure that one who has been so kind can't be very bad," added Mrs. Kent, rather bewildered by the confession of her benefactor. "Where did you say you lived, Fanny?"
The wanderer had been obliged to invent a story in the beginning to account for her absence from home, and the poor woman's heart had been too full of gratitude to permit any doubt to enter there.
"I have deceived you, Mrs. Kent," replied Fanny, bursting into tears. "I do not live in the city; my home is twenty-five miles up the river. But I did not mean to deceive poor Jenny. I wanted to tell her what a wicked deed I had done, but she would not let me."
"She was too good to think evil of any one, and especially of you, who have been so generous to us."
"You know the paper she wrote and gave to me?"
"Yes."
"I know from that she believed I had done something very bad."
"Perhaps she did."