d.

"So your call has been returned," said I, on entering our sitting room.

"Yes. How did you know?" Constance looked up, smiling, but curious.

"I saw Mrs. Dewey's carriage leave our door as I turned into the street.
Did she come in, or only leave her card?"

"She came in, and sat for half an hour."

"And made herself very agreeable,--was patronizing, and all that?"

"No--nothing of the kind suggested by your words." And Constance looked
at me reproachfully. "She was, on the contrary, quiet, subdued, and
womanly. I called to see her, with the manner of one who had about her
no consciousness of inferiority; and she returned the call, without a
sign that I could regard as offensive."

"It is well," I answered, coming back into my better state. "If true
friends can take the place of false friends, who left her the moment a
shadow fell upon her good name, then the occasion of blame may pave the
way to life instead of ruin. There must be remains of early and better
states covered up and hidden away in her soul, but not lost; and by
means of these she may be saved--yet, I fear, that only through deep
suffering will the overlying accretions of folly be broken away."

"She is in the hands of one to whom all spirits are precious," said
Constance, meekly; "and if we can aid in His good work of restoration
and salvation, our reward shall be great."

After the lapse of a week, Constance called again upon Mrs. Dewey. She
found her in a very unhappy state of mind, and failed, almost entirely,
in her efforts to throw a few sunbeams across the shadow by which she
was environed. Her reception was neither cold nor cordial.

"I think," she said, "that my visit was untimely. Some recent occurrence
had, probably, disturbed her mind so deeply; that she was not able
to rise above the depression that followed. I noticed a bitterness of
feeling about her that was not apparent on the occasion of my first
call; and a hardness of manner and sentiment, that indicated a condition
of mental suffering having its origin in a sense of wrong. Mr. Dewey
passed through the hall, and went out a few minutes after I entered the
house, and before his wife joined me in the parlor. It may have been
fancy; but I thought, while I sat there awaiting her appearance, that I
heard angry words in the room above. The heavy tread of a man's foot
was there; but the sound ceased all at once--so did the voices. A little
while afterwards Mr. Dewey came down stair