"I did not see her."
"What? Didn't you refuse to speak to her?"
"Never in my life. I esteem Mrs. Jones too highly. If I passed her, as you say, without speaking, it was because I did not see her."
In less than half an hour, Mrs. Todd was at the house of Mrs. Jones. What passed between the ladies need not be told.
ALMOST A TRAGEDY.
A REMINISCENCE OF MR. JOHN JONES.
IT is now about five years since I met with a little adventure in the West, which may be worth relating. It caused me a good deal of excitement at first; regrets afterward, for the temporary pain I inflicted, and many a hearty laugh since. New things come up so rapidly that it is almost impossible to keep the run of them, and it is not at all surprising that those who are content to go along in the good old way should now and then be caught napping. I own that I was, completely.
Business took me out West, in the spring of 18—, and kept me in Ohio for the entire summer of that year. After a hard day's ride, in the month of August, I entered, just before nightfall, a certain town lying on the National Road, where I expected to remain for a week. After taking possession of my room at the hotel; shaving, washing, and improving my appearance in other respects, I came down and took a seat in the porch that ran along the front of the house. I had not been here very long before the stage from the East drove up, and the passengers, who were to take supper, as this was a stage-house, alighted. Among them, I noticed a woman with a pale, emaciated, and, I would have said, dying child in her arms. Her face was anxious and haggard in its expression. She was accompanied by a man, whom I rightly supposed to be her husband. He immediately went to the bar and engaged a room, saying that his child was too sick to permit them to continue their journey.
"Do you wish a doctor?" asked the landlord.
"No," replied the man. "We have medicine, prescribed by our own physician before we left home. If that does no good, we have little confidence in any other remedies."