before, and, "Oh, gentleman, but
haven't you got some news to give me?" she said.

"My good woman,--I--have been greatly occupied. I have had--no time to do
anything."

"Ah!" she said, with a little cry of disappointment, "my man said not to
make too sure, and that the ways of the gentlefolks is hard to know."

"I cannot explain to you," I said, as gently as I could, "what it is that
has made me forget you. It was an event that can only do you good in the
end. Go home now, and see the man that took your things from you, and
tell him to come to me. I promise you it shall all be put right."

The woman looked at me in astonishment, then burst forth, as it seemed,
involuntarily, "What! without asking no questions?" After this there came
a storm of tears and blessings, from which I made haste to escape, but
not without carrying that curious commentary on my rashness away with
me,--"Without asking no questions?" It might be foolish, perhaps; but
after all, how slight a matter. To make the poor creature comfortable at
the cost of what,--a box or two of cigars, perhaps, or some other trifle.
And if it should be her own fault, or her husband's--what then? Had I
been punished for all my faults, where should I have been now? And if the
advantage should be only temporary, what then? To be relieved and
comforted even for a day or two, was not that something to count in life?
Thus I quenched the fiery dart of criticism which my _protegee_ herself
had thrown into the transaction, not without a certain sense of the humor
of it. Its effect, however, was to make me less anxious to see my father,
to repeat my proposal to him, and to call his attention to the cruelty
performed in his name. This one case I had taken out of the category of
wrongs to be righted, by assuming arbitrarily the position of Providence
in my own person,--for, of course, I had bound myself to pay the poor
creature's rent as well as redeem her goods,--and, whatever might happen
to her in the future, had taken the past into my own hands. The man came
presently to see me, who, it seems, had acted as my father's agent in the
matter. "I don't know, sir, how Mr. Canning will take it," he said. "He
don't want none of those irregular, bad-paying ones in his property. He
always says as to look over it and let the rent run on is making things
worse in the end. His rule is, 'Never more than a month, Stevens;' that's
what Mr. Canning says to me, sir. He says, 'More than that t