with unless you prefer to hurt my feelings and me seriously that i should be yery sorry to do but i cannot ride with mr � cannot and why how can you ask mamma how can you wish me to associate intimately with the sort of man he is what are you fighting now for a sensible girl you are the i ever met with what do you mean you surely know what i mean mamma you know that has been one of the most dissipated men in the city so have forty other men been who are yery good husbands now or whose wives are too prudent to make a fuss about it if they are not � i do not think it yery creditable to a young lady to be seeking information of this sort about young men i have not sought it i never dreamed looked in her mother s face that my mother would introduce a man to me who as we both have heard on good authority has kept a mistress since he was eighteen and h changed her as often as suited his caprice bat having heard this i surely will not disregard it you are scrupulous and very unjust my dear has entirely given up all this sort of thing � he assured me he had and you took his assurance mamma and would not listen for one moment to that poor penitent assurance oh that s quite a different thing i see no difference excepting that the one is the strong party the other the weak � the one the the other the betrayed the fact of the girl seeking honest employment is evidence in favour of her truth you talk so and to speak plainly i do not think it over delicate continued mrs with a curl of her lip for an unmarried lady of nineteen to be discussing subjects of this though it may be quite often your aunt s fashion te do so it is very much my aunt s fashion to strip off the and look for the � to throw away the world s current and keep the real gold probably she would think it far more to receive a man her society than te express her opinion of his vices and i know she thinks it not only but and te certain vices in men for which women are and hunted down mercy on us what an for nothing truly you and your aunt with your country evening morals � re very competent judges of town society it seems te my poor common sense that you are rather a partial of your you are quite willing to receive this young woman with her h child and you would doubly bar and bolt the door against a very charming young man who has sown his wild oh surely mamma this is not the true state of the case the one ty is a man of fashion received and current the other a poor young outcast who seems more against than probably the victim of some such charming young man as as women as professed followers of christ my dear mother ought we not to help her out of the pit into which she has fallen may we not guard her from future danger and misery mrs stood foi a moment silent and before the gentle earnestness of her daughter but after a moment she rallied and said with a forced laugh � you had best join the society at once they will give you plenty of this fancy missionary work to do i confess it is not quite to my taste made no reply she was too much pained by her mother s levity and she took refuge in writing the incidents of the morning to that aunt in whose pure atmosphere she had been reared sickening with fatigue and disappointment helped on her way by an returned to the intelligence office where she had left her bundle the official gentleman there on hearing the story of her said well it s no fault of mine � you can t expect a good place without a good reference oh i expect nothing replied i hope for nothing but that my baby and i may lay down together and die � very soon if it please god i am sorry for you i declare i am said the man h who though his sensibility was pretty much worn away by daily could not look without pity upon the pale beautiful young creature humble and gentle and trembling in every fibre with exhaustion and despair you are tired out he said � and your baby wants taking care of there s a decent lodging house in the next street no where you may get a night s lodging for a to morrow morning you ll feel better � the world will look brighter after a night s sleep come back to me in the morning and i will give you some more chances i won t go according to rule with you thanked him kissed her baby and again with trembling wavering steps went forth she had but just turned the comer when overcome by she sat down on a door step as she did so a woman coming from the pump turned to go down into the area of a room she rested her on the step and cast her eye on god save us she cried i i ve found you at last � just as i expected god punish them that s wronged you can t you to me don t you know o oh yes replied faintly my only friend in this world indeed i do know you and indeed and indeed you cannot come amiss to me � you are welcome as if you were my own to every thing i have in the world rise up give me the god s pity on 