arrying to some of her
_proteges._

"But surely that is a waste of your valuable time," remonstrated her
admirer. "Much better buy them."

"But, my good soul," replied the representative of Sir Harry Wildair,
"you can't buy them. Nobody in this wretched town can knit worsted hose
except Woffington."

Conversions like this are open to just suspicion, and some did not fail
to confound her with certain great sinners, who have turned austere
self-deceivers when sin smiled no more. But this was mere conjecture.
The facts were clear, and speaking to the contrary. This woman left
folly at its brightest, and did not become austere. On the contrary,
though she laughed less, she was observed to smile far oftener than
before. She was a humble and penitent, but cheerful, hopeful Christian.

Another class of detractors took a somewhat opposite ground. They
accused her of bigotry for advising a young female friend against the
stage as a business. But let us hear herself. This is what she said to
the girl:

"At the bottom of my heart, I always loved and honored virtue. Yet the
tendencies of the stage so completely overcame my good sentiments that
I was for years a worthless woman. It is a situation of uncommon and
incessant temptation. Ask yourself, my child, whether there is nothing
else you can do, but this. It is, I think, our duty and our wisdom to
fly temptation whenever we can, as it is to resist it when we cannot
escape it."

Was this the tone of bigotry?

Easy in fortune, penitent, but cheerful, Mrs. Woffington had now but one
care--to efface the memory of her former self, and to give as many years
to purity and piety as had gone to folly and frailty. This was not
to be! The Almighty did not permit, or perhaps I should say, did not
require this.

Some unpleasant symptoms had long attracted her notice, but in the
bustle of her profession had received little attention. She was now
persuaded by her own medical attendant to consult Dr. Bowdler, who had a
great reputation, and had been years ago an acquaintance and an admirer.
He visited her, he examined her by means little used in that day, and he
saw at once that her days were numbered.

Dr. Bowdler's profession and experience had not steeled his heart as
they generally do and must do. He could not tell her this sad news, so
he asked her for pen and paper, and said, I will write a prescription
to Mr. ----. He then wrote, not a prescription, but a few lines, begging
M