"You'll have all your trouble for nothing."
"No matter, I'll clear my conscience, and that is something. Come, wont you go with me?"
Mrs. Little declined the invitation at first; but, strongly urged by Mrs. Miller, she finally consented. So the two ladies forthwith took their way toward the neighbourhood in which Mrs. Harding had said the needy woman lived. They were within a few doors of the house, which had been very minutely described by Mrs. Harding, when they met Mrs. Johns.
"Ah!" said the latter, with animation, "just the person, of all others, I most wished to see. How could you, Mrs. Miller, so greatly wrong Mrs. Harding?"
"Me wrong her, Mrs. Johns? I don't understand you." And Mrs. Miller looked considerably astonished.
"Mrs. Little informed me that you had good reasons for believing all this story about a poor widow to be a mere subterfuge, got up to cover some doings of her own that Mrs. Harding was ashamed to bring to the light."
"Mrs. Little!" There was profound astonishment in the tones of Mrs. Miller, and her eyes had in them such an indignant light, as she fixed them upon her companion, that the latter quailed under her gaze.
"Acting from this impression," resumed Mrs. Johns, "I declined placing at her disposal the means of relief promised; but, instead, told her that I would myself see the needy person for whom she asked aid. This I have, until now, neglected to do; and this neglect, or indifference I might rather call it, has arisen from a belief that there was no poor widow in the case. Wrong has been done, Mrs. Miller, great wrong! How could you have imagined such baseness of Mrs. Harding?"
"And there is a poor, sick widow, in great need?" said Mrs.
Miller, now speaking calmly, and with regained self-possession.
"There is a sick widow," replied Mrs. Johns, "but not at present in great need. Mrs. Harding has supplied immediate wants."