tting with Maria, when Priscilla
and one or two of the children went in. Mrs Levitt spoke of us:
Priscilla denied our engagement: Maria asserted it--very gently, but
quite decidedly. Priscilla reminded her of her poverty and infirmities,
spoke of the gratitude she owed to those from whom she derived her
subsistence, and reproached her with having purposes of her own to
answer, in making matches in the families of her employers."

"And Maria?"

"Maria trembled excessively, the children say, weak and reduced by pain
as she is. One can hardly conceive of temper carrying any woman into
such cruelty! Mrs Levitt rose, in great concern and displeasure, to
go: but Maria begged her to sit down again, sent one of the children for
me, and appealed to me to declare what share she had had in my
engagement with you. I set her right with Mrs Levitt, who, I am
convinced, sees how the matter stands. But it was really a distressing
scene."

"And before the children, too!"

"That was the worst part of it. They stood looking from the furthest
corner of the room in utter dismay. It would have moved any one but
Priscilla to see the torrent of tears Maria shed over them, when they
came timidly to wish her good morning, after Mrs Levitt was gone. She
said she could do nothing more for them: they had been taught to despise
her, and her relation to them was at an end."

"It is; it must be," exclaimed Margaret. "Is there no way of stopping a
career of vice like this? While Mrs Plumstead gets a parish boy
whipped for picking up her hens' eggs from among the nettles, is Maria
to have no redress for slander which takes away her peace and her
bread?"

"She shall have redress. For the children's sake, as well as her own,
her connection with them must go on. I do not exactly see how; but the
thing must be done. I dread speaking to poor Rowland about any of these
things; I know it makes him so wretched: but the good and the innocent
must not be sacrificed. If these poor children must despise somebody,
their contempt must be made to fall in the right place, even though it
be upon their mother."

"Let us go and see Maria," said Margaret, turning back. "If there is a
just and merciful way of proceeding in this case, she will point it out.
I wish you had told me all this before. Here have we been rambling
over the grass and among the wild-flowers, where, at the best, Maria can
never go; and she lies weeping all alone, looking for m