"No."
"Did she look guilty?"
"You would have thought so, if you had seen her."
"What did she do?"
"She sat with her eyes upon the floor for some time, and then rose up, and without uttering a word, left the house."
"I wish she had said something. It would have been a satisfaction to know what she thought. But I suppose the poor woman was so confounded, that she didn't know what to say."
"So it appeared to me. She was completely stunned. I really pitied her from my heart. But want of principle should never be countenanced. If we are to have social integrity, we must mark with appropriate condemnation all deviations therefrom. It was exceedingly painful, but the path of duty was before me, and I walked in it without faltering."
Mrs. Grimes was neither so clear-sighted, nor so well satisfied with what she had done, as all this. She left the house of Mrs. Markle feeling very unhappy. Although she had been using her little unruly member against Mrs. Comegys with due industry, she was all the while on the most friendly terms with her, visiting at her house and being visited. It was only a few days, before that she had taken tea and spent an evening with her. Not that Mrs. Grimes was deliberately hypocritical, but she had a free tongue, and, like too many in society, more cautious about what they said than she, much better pleased to see evil than good in a neighbour. There are very few of us, perhaps, who have not something of this fault—an exceedingly bad fault, by the way. It seems to arise from a consciousness of our own imperfections and the pleasure we feel in making the discovery that others are as bad, if not worse than we are.
Two days after Mrs. Comegys had called on Mrs. Markle to ask for explanations, the latter received a note in the following words:
"MADAM.—I have no doubt you have acted according to your own views of right in dropping as suddenly as you have done, the acquaintance of an old friend. Perhaps, if you had called upon me and asked explanations, you might have acted a little differently. My present object in addressing you is to ask, as a matter of justice, that you will call at my house to-morrow at twelve o'clock. I think that I am entitled to speak a word in my own defense. After you have heard that I shall not complain of any course you may think it right to pursue.
"ANNA COMEGYS."