"Miserable," was answered. And not even the ghost of a smile played over the unhappy face.
"Are you sick?" asked Mrs. Bland, showing some concern.
"No, not exactly sick. But, somehow or other, I'm in a worry about things all the while. I can't move a step in any direction without coming against the pricks. It seems as though all things were conspiring against me."
And then Mrs. Caldwell went, with her friend, through the whole series of her morning troubles, ending with the sentence,—
"Now, don't you think I am beset? Why, Mrs. Bland, I'm in a purgatory."
"A purgatory of your own creating, my friend," answered Mrs. Bland with the plainness of speech warranted by the intimacy of their friendship; "and my advice is to come out of it as quickly as possible."
"Come out of it! That is easily said. Will you show me the way?"
"At some other time perhaps. But this morning I have something else on hand. I've called for you to go with me on an errand of mercy."
There was no Christian response in the face of Mrs. Caldwell. She was too deep amid the gloom of her own, wretched state to have sympathy for others.
"Mary Brady is in trouble," said Mrs. Bland.