About an hour afterwards, as Mr. Edwards sat reading a letter, the Quaker entered his store.
"Ah, how do you do? I am glad to see you," said the merchant, his manner more than usually earnest. "Did you see anything more of that young woman?"
"Yes," replied the Quaker. "I could not leave one like her without knowing something of her past life and present circumstances. I think even you will hardly be disposed to regard her as an object unworthy of interest."
"No, certainly I will not. Her appearance, and the circumstances under which we found her, are all in her favor."
"But we turned aside from the beaten path. We looked into a by-place to us; or we would not have discovered her. She was not obtrusive. She asked no aid; but, with the last few shillings that remained to her in the world, had gone to recover, if possible, an unredeemed pledge—the miniature of her mother, on which she had obtained a small advance of money to buy food and medicine for the dying original. This is but one of the thousand cases of real distress that are all around us. We could see them if we did but turn aside for a moment into ways unfamiliar to our feet."
"Did you learn who she was, and anything of her condition?" asked Mr. Edwards.
"Oh yes. To do so was but a common dictate of humanity. I would have felt it as a stain upon my conscience to have left one like her uncared for in the circumstances under which we found her."
"Did you accompany her home?"
"Yes; I went with her to the place she called her home—a room in which there was scarcely an article of comfort—and there learned the history of her past life and present condition. Does thee remember Belgrave, who carried on a large business in Maiden Lane some years ago?"
"Very well. But, surely this girl is not Mary Belgrave?"