it was to think
it."

"No, no, you needn't try to smooth it down," she continued, interrupting
her guest's efforts to mollify her by a few deprecating words. "You
can't unsay it, now it's said; and saying it's no worse than thinking
it. I don't envy you your thoughts, though. I've always stood up for
Sally, and I always shall, and anybody that is stupid enough to suppose,
because I stand up for her, I justify what she did that was wrong, is
welcome: I don't care. Sally is a good, patient, loving woman to-day; I
don't know anybody more so: I, for one, respect her. I wish I could be
half as patient;" and Hetty stooped, and, picking up a handful of the
pine-needles with which the road was thickly strewn, crumbled them up
fiercely in her hands, and tossing the dust high in the air, exclaimed:

"I wouldn't give that for the character of any woman that can't believe
in another woman's having thoroughly repented of having done wrong."

"Oh! nobody doubts that Sally has repented," said the embarrassed
visitor.

"Oh, they don't?" said Hetty, in a sarcastic tone; "well then I'd like
to ask them what they mean by treating her as they do. I'd like to ask
them what the Lord does to sinners that repent. He says they are to come
and be with him in Heaven, I believe; and I'd like to know whether after
He's taken them to Heaven, they're going to be reminded every minute of
all the sins they've repented of. Oh, but I've no patience with it!"

As Hetty was walking slowly back to the house after this injudicious
outburst, she met Dr. Eben Williams coming down the avenue. Her first
impulse was to plunge into the shrubbery, on the right hand or the left,
and escape him. The baby was now four weeks old, and yet Hetty had never
till to-day seen the doctor. It had been a very sore point between her
and Sally, that Sally would persist in having this young Dr. Williams
from the "Corners," instead of old Dr. Tuthill, who had been the family
doctor at "Gunn's" for nearly fifty years. It was the only quarrel that
Hetty and Sally had ever had; and it came near being a very serious one:
but Hetty suddenly recollected herself, and exclaiming:

"Why bless me, Sally, I haven't any right to decide what doctor you're
to have when you're sick; I'll never say another word about it; only you
needn't expect me ever to speak to that Eben Williams; I never expected
to see him under my roof," she dropped the subject and never alluded to
it again.

Her fi