"There's precious few'd come if 'twas," the girl muttered.

"Has anybody been to see you?" I asked.

The Brownrig girl turned her fierce eyes up to me with a look which made me think of some wild bird hurt and caged.

"One old woman that sat and chewed her veil and swung her foot at me.

She never come but once."

I had no difficulty in recognizing this portrait, even without Mrs.

Bagley's explanatory comment.

"That was Aunt Naomi Dexter," she remarked. "She's always poking round."

"Miss Dexter is one of the kindest women alive," I said, "though she is a little odd in her manner sometimes."

"She said she hoped I'd found things bad enough to give me a hankerin'

for something better," went on Julia with increasing bitterness. "G.o.d!

How does she think I'd get anything better? What does she know about it, anyway?"

"There, there, Jule," interposed Mrs. Bagley in a sort of professional tone, "now don't go to gettin' excited and rampageous. You know she brought you some rippin' flannel for the baby. Them pious folks has to talk, but, Lord, n.o.body minds it, and you hadn't ought ter. They don't really mean nothing much."

It seemed to be time to interpose, and I forbade Julia to talk, sent Mrs. Bagley off to sleep in the one other bedroom, and settled down for the night's watching. The patient fell asleep at last, and I was left to care for the fire and the poor little pathetic, forlorn, dreadful baby.

The child was swathed in Aunt Naomi's "rippin' flannel," and I fell into baffling reflections in regard to human life. After all, I had no right to judge this poor broken girl lying there much more in danger than she could dream. What do I know of the intolerable life that has not self-respect, not even cleanliness of mind or body? Society and morality have so fenced us about and so guarded us that we have rather to try to get outside than to struggle to keep in; and what do we know of the poor wretches fighting for life with wild beasts in the open? I am so glad I do not believe that sin is what one actually does, but is the proportion between deeds and opportunity. How carefully Father explained this to me when I was not much more than a child, and how strange it is that so many people cannot seem to understand it! If I thought the moral law an inflexible thing like a human statute, for which one was held responsible arbitrarily and whether he knows the law or not, I should never be able to endure the sense of injustice. Of course men have to be arbitrary, because they can see only tangible things and must judge by outward acts; but if this were true of a deity he would cease to be a deity at all, and be simply a man with unlimited power to do harm.

April 7. I found myself so running aground last night in metaphysics that it seemed just as well to go to bed, diary or no diary. I was besides too tired to write down my interview with Mrs. Webbe.

I was just about to go home for a bath and a nap after watching that first night, when, without even knocking, Mrs. Deacon Webbe opened the outside door. I was in the kitchen, and so met her before she got further. Naturally I was surprised to see her at six o'clock in the day.

"Good-morning," I said.

"I knew you were here yesterday," she said by way of return for my greeting, "but I thought I'd get here before you came back this morning."

"I have been here all night," I answered.

She looked at me with her piercing black eyes, which always seem to go into the very recesses of one's thoughts, and then, in a manner rather less aggressive, remarked,--

"I've come to speak to this Brownrig girl. You know well enough why."

"I'm afraid you can't see her," I answered, ignoring the latter part of her words. "She is not so well this morning, and Dr. Wentworth told us to keep her as quiet as possible."

Mrs. Webbe leaned forward with an expression on her face which made me look away.

"Is she going to die?" she demanded.

I turned away, and began to close the door. I could not bear her manner.

She has too much cause to hate the girl, but just then, with the poor thing sick to the very point of death, I could never have felt as she looked.

"I'm sure I hope not," I returned. "We expect to have a professional nurse to-morrow, and then things will go better."

"A professional nurse?"

"Yes; we have sent to Boston for one."

"Sent to Boston for a nurse for that creature? She's a great deal better dead! She only leads men"--

"If you will excuse me, Mrs. Webbe," interrupted I, pushing the door still nearer to closing, "I ought to go back to my patient. It isn't my business to decide who had better be dead."

She started forward suddenly, taking me unawares, and before I understood what she intended, she had thrust herself through the door into the house.

"If it isn't your business," she demanded sharply, "what are you here for? What right have you to interfere? If Providence is willing to take the creature out of the way, what are you trying to keep her alive for?"

I put up my hand and stopped her.

"Will you be quiet?" I said. "I cannot have her disturbed."

"You cannot!" she repeated, raising her voice. "Who gave you a right to order me round, Ruth Privet? Is this your house?"

I knew that her shrill voice would easily penetrate to Julia's bedroom, and indeed there was only a thin door between the sick girl and the kitchen where we were. I took Mrs. Webbe by the wrist as strongly as I could, and before she could collect her wits, I led her out of the house, and down to the gate.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "How dare you drag me about?"

"I beg your pardon," I said, dropping my hold. "I think you did not understand, Mrs. Webbe, that as nurse I cannot have my patient excited."

She looked at me in a blaze of anger. I have never seen a woman so carried away by rage, and it is frightful. Yet she seemed to be making an effort to control herself. I was anxious to help her if I could, so I forced a smile, although I am afraid it was not a very warm one, and I a.s.sumed as conciliatory a manner as I could muster.

"You must think I was rather abrupt," I said, "but I did not mean to be.

I couldn't explain to you in the kitchen, the part.i.tion is so thin. You see she's in the room that opens out of it."

Mrs. Webbe softened somewhat.

"It is very n.o.ble of you to be here," she said in a new tone, and one which I must confess did not to me have a genuine ring; "it's splendid of you, but what's the use of it? What affair of yours is it, anyway?"

I was tempted to serve her up a quotation about a certain man who went down to Jericho and fell among thieves, but I resisted.

"I could come, Mrs. Webbe, and apparently n.o.body else could."

"They wouldn't," she rejoined frankly. "Don't you see everybody else knew it was a case to be let alone?"

I asked her why.

"Everybody felt as if it was," responded she quickly. "I hope you don't set up to be wiser than everybody else put together."

"I don't set up for anything," I declared, "but I may as well confess that I see no sense in what you say. Here's a human creature that needs help, and it seems to be my place to help her."

"It's a nice occupation for the daughter of Judge Privet to be nursing a disreputable thing like a Brownrig."

"A Privet," I answered, "is likely to be able to stand it. You wouldn't let the girl die alone, would you?"