"Have you heard about Mrs. Comegys?"

"What about her?"

"I supposed you knew it. _I've_ heard it from half a dozen persons.

It is said that Perkins, through a mistake of one of his clerks, sent her home some fifteen or twenty yards of lawn more than she had paid for, and that, instead of sending it back, she kept it and made it up for her children. Did you ever hear of such a trick for an honest woman?"

"I don't think any honest woman would be guilty of such an act. Yes, I heard of it a few days ago as a great secret, and have not mentioned it to a living soul."

"Secret? bless me! it is no secret. It is in every one's mouth."

"Is it possible? I must say that Mrs. Grimes has been very indiscreet."

"Mrs. Grimes! Did it come from her in the first place?"

"Yes. She told me that she was present when the lawn came home, and saw Mrs. Comegys measure it, and heard her say that she meant to keep it."

"Which she has done. For I saw her in the street, yesterday, with a beautiful new lawn, and her little Julia was with her, wearing one precisely like it."

"How any woman can do so is more than I can understand."

"So it is, Mrs. Raynor. Just to think of dressing your child up in a frock as good as stolen! Isn't it dreadful?"

"It is, indeed!"

"Mrs. Comegys is not an honest woman. That is clear. I am told that this is not the first trick of the kind of which she has been guilty. They say that she has a natural propensity to take things that are not her own."

"I can hardly believe that."

"Nor can I. But it's no harder to believe this than to believe that she would cheat Perkins out of fifteen of twenty yards of lawn. It's a pity; for Mrs. Comegys, in every thing else, is certainly a very nice woman. In fact, I don't know any one I visit with so much pleasure."

Thus the circle of detraction widened, until there was scarcely a friend or acquaintance of Mrs. Comegys, near or remote, who had not heard of her having cheated a dry goods dealer out of several yards of lawn. Three, it had first been alleged; but the most common version of the story made it fifteen or twenty. Meantime, Mrs.

Comegys remained in entire ignorance of what was alleged against her, although she noticed in two or three of her acquaintances, a trifling coldness that struck her as rather singular.

One day her husband, seeing that she looked quite sober, said--

"You seem quite dull to-day, dear. Don't you feel well?"

"Yes, I feel as well as usual, in body."

"But not in mind?"

"I do not feel quite comfortable in mind, certainly, though I don't know that I have any serious cause of uneasiness."

"Though a slight cause exists. May I ask what it is?"

"It is nothing more nor less than that I was coolly _cut_ by an old friend to-day, whom I met in a store on Chesnut street. And as she is a woman that I highly esteem, both for the excellence of her character, and the agreeable qualities, as a friend, that she possesses. I cannot but feel a little bad about it. If she were one of that capricious cla.s.s who get offended with you, once a month, for no just cause whatever, I should not care a fig. But Mrs. Markle is a woman of character, good sense and good feeling, whose friendship I have always prized."

"Was it Mrs. Markle?" said the husband, with some surprise.

"Yes."

"What can possibly be the cause?"

"I cannot tell."

"Have you thought over every thing?"

"Yes, I have turned and turned the matter in my mind, but can imagine no reason why she, of all others, could treat me coolly."

"Have you never spoken of her in a way to have your words misinterpreted by some evil-minded person--Mrs. Grimes, for instance--whose memory, or moral sense, one or the other, is very dull?"

"I have never spoken of her to any one, except in terms of praise. I could not do otherwise, for I look upon her as one of the most faultless women I know."

"She has at least shown that she possesses one fault."

"What is that?"

"If she has heard any thing against you of a character so serious as to make her wish to give up your acquaintance, she should at least have afforded you the chance of defending yourself before condemning you."

"I think that, myself."

"It may be that she did not see you," Mr. Comegys suggested.

"She looked me in the face, and nodded with cold formality."

"Perhaps her mind was abstracted."

"It might have been so. Mine would have been very abstracted, indeed, to keep me from a more cordial recognition of a friend."

"How would it do to call and see her?"

"I have been thinking of that. But my feelings naturally oppose it.

I am not conscious of having done any thing to merit a withdrawal of the friendly sentiments she has held towards me; still, if she wishes to withdraw them, my pride says, let her do so."

"But pride, you know, is not always the best adviser."

"No. Perhaps the less regard we pay to its promptings, the better."

"I think so."

"It is rather awkward to go to a person and ask why you have been treated coldly."

"I know it is. But in a choice of evils, is it not always wisest to choose the least?"

"But is any one's bad opinion of you, if it be not correctly formed, an evil?"

"Certainly it is."