"But the sisters have not left?" I eagerly asked.
"Not all," he said, "but two or three of them went down this morning."
"Drive on quicker," I replied, "I am in a hurry."
The man gave the horse a crack with his whip, which made no difference
whatever in our rate of speed, and said:--
"If you've got a bill agin any of them, sir, you needn't worry. The
Mother is still there, and she's all right, you know."
"Bill? Nonsense!" said I.
"I'm sorry they're busted," said the man; "they didn't do much hackin',
but they give us a lot of haulin' from the station."
As I hurried up the broad path which led to the front of the House of
Martha, I found the door of the main entrance open, something I had
never noticed before, although I had often passed the house. I entered
unceremoniously, and saw before me, in the hallway, a woman in gray,
stooping over a trunk. She turned, at the sound of my footsteps on the
bare floor, and I beheld Sister Sarah. Her eyes flashed as she saw me,
and I know that her first impulse was to order me out of the house. This
of course she now had no right to do, but there were private rights
which she still maintained.
"I should think," she said, "that a man who has done all the mischief
that you have done, who has worked and planned and plotted and
contrived, until he has undermined and utterly ruined the sisterhood of
pious women who ask nothing of this world but to be let alone to do
their own work in their own way, would be ashamed to put his nose into
this house; but I suppose a man who would do what you have done does not
know what shame is.
Pages:
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360