"What is said? I wish to know. Don't keep back anything on account of my feelings. I shall know as to its truth or falsehood; and, true or false, it is better that I should stand fully advised. A seamstress came to work for me on Monday—it was a stormy day, you know—took cold from wet feet, and is now very ill. That much I know. It might have happened at your house, or your neighbors, without legitimate blame lying against either of you. Now, out of this simple fact, what dreadful report is circulated to my injury? As I have just said, don't keep anything back."
"The story," replied the friend, "is that she walked for half a mile before breakfast, in the face of that terrible north-east storm, and came to you with feet soaking and skirts wet to the knees, and that you put her to work, in this condition, in a cold room, and suffered her to sit in her wet garments all day. That, in consequence, she went home sick, was attacked with pleurisy in the evening, which soon ran into acute pneumonia, and that she is now dying. The doctor, who told my friend, called it murder, and said, without hesitation, that you were a murderer."
"Dying! Did he say that she was dying?"
"Yes, ma'am. The doctor said that you might as well have put a pistol ball through her head."
"Me!"
"Yes, you. Those were his words, as repeated by my friend."
"Who is the friend to whom you refer?"
"Mrs. T——."
"And, without a word of inquiry as to the degree of blame referable to me, she repeats this wholesale charge, to my injury? Verily, that is Christian charity!"
"I suggested caution on her part, and started to see you at once. Then she did sit in her wet clothing all day at your house?"