Bridget returned, after having been gone several minutes, and said Nancy would be in directly. We waited for some time, and then sent for her again. Word was brought back that she was nowhere to be found in the house.
"Come in with me, Mrs. Smith," said my neighbor, rising. I did so, according to her request. Sure enough, Nancy was gone. We went up into her room, and found that she had bundled up her clothes and taken them off, but left behind her unmistakable evidence of what she had been doing. In an old chest which Mrs. Jordon had let her use for her clothes were many packages of tea, burnt coffee, sugar, soap, eggs; a tin kettle containing a pound of butter, and various other articles of table use.
Poor Mrs. Jordon seemed bewildered.
"Let me look at that pound lump of butter," said I.
Mrs. Jordon took up the kettle containing it. "It isn't my butter," she remarked.
"But it's mine, and the very pound she got of me yesterday for you."
"Gracious me!" ejaculated my neighbor. "Was anything like this ever heard?"
"She evidently borrowed on your credit and mine—both ways," I remarked with a smile, for all my unkind feelings toward Mrs. Jordon were gone, "and for her own benefit."
"But isn't it dreadful to think of, Mrs. Smith? See what harm the creature has done! Over and over again have I complained of your borrowing so much and returning so little; and you have doubtless made the same complaint of me."
"I certainly have. I felt that I was not justly dealt by."