ome alone,
bringing feeble apologies for Mrs. Little, on score of headaches,
previous engagements, and so on; but privately, to Hetty, he had
confessed the truth, saying,--

"You see, Hetty, she hasn't spoken to Sally yet; and she says she
never will: just to see her on the street, gives her a dreadful nervous
headache, sometimes for two days. Mrs. Little's nerves are too much for
her always: she ain't strong, you know, Hetty."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Hetty at last, bluntly. "It isn't nerves, it's
temper, and a most unchristian temper too, begging your pardon. Deacon,
I know she's your wife. If I were Jim, I'd never go near her, never, so
long as she wouldn't speak to Sally. I shan't ask her again, and you may
tell her so; and you may tell her, too, that I say I'd rather take
my chance of being forgiven for what Sally's done than for what she's
doing." And Hetty strode up and down her piazza wrathfully.

"There are plenty of people in town who do come here, and do speak to
Sally," she continued; "and ever so many of them have told me how much
they were coming to like her. She hasn't got any great force I know. If
she had had, such a fellow as your Jim couldn't have led her away as he
did: but she's got all the force the Lord gave her; and if ever there
was a girl that repented for a sin, and atoned for it too, it's Sally;
and I'd a good deal rather be in her place to-day, than in the place of
any of the people that set themselves up as too good to speak to her.
She's a loving, patient-souled creature, and she's been a real comfort
to me ever since she came into my house; and anybody that won't speak to
her needn't speak to me, that's all." Poor Deacon Little twirled his
hat in his hands, and moved about uneasily on his chair, during Hetty's
excited speech. When he spoke, his distress was so evident in his voice
that Hetty relented and was ashamed of herself instantly.

"Don't be too hard on Mrs. Little, Hetty," he said, "you know Jim was
her favorite of all the children; and she can't never see it anyways
but that Sally's been his ruin. Now I don't see it that way; and I 've
always tried to be good to Sally, in all ways that I could be, things
being as they were at home. You know a man ain't always free to do's
he likes, Hetty. He can't go against his wife, leastways not when she's
feeble like Mrs. Little."

"No, no, Deacon Little," Hetty hastened to say, "I never meant to
reproach you. Sally always says you've been