determined, however, that he would make his proposition.
It was almost certain now that he could do no good to Carry by making
it; but he felt that it would be a pleasure to him to make this
self-righteous woman know what he conceived to be her duty in the
matter. "My idea was this--that you should take her in here, and
endeavour to preserve her from future evil courses."

"Take her in here?" shrieked the woman.

"Yes; here. Who is nearer to her than a brother?"

"Not if I know it, Mr. Fenwick; and if that is what you have been
saying to Brattle, I must tell you that you've come on a very bad
errand. People, Mr. Fenwick, knows how to manage things such as that
for themselves in their own houses. Strangers don't usually talk
about such things, Mr. Fenwick. Perhaps, Mr. Fenwick, you didn't know
as how we have got girls of our own coming up. Have her in here--at
Startup? I think I see her here!"

"But, Mrs. Brattle--"

"Don't Mrs. Brattle me, Mr. Fenwick, for I won't be so treated. And I
must tell you that I don't think it over decent of you,--a clergyman,
and a young man, too, in a way,--to come talking of such a one in a
house like this."

"Would you have her starve, or die in a ditch?"

"There ain't no question of starving. Such as her don't starve. As
long as it lasts, they've the best of eating and drinking,--only
too much of it. There's prisons; let 'em go there if they means
repentance. But they never does,--never, till there ain't nobody to
notice 'em any longer; and by that time they're mostly thieves and
pickpockets."

"And you would do nothing to save your own husband's sister from such
a fate?"

"What business had she to be sister to any honest man? Think of
what she's been and done to my children, who wouldn't else have had
nobody to be ashamed of. There never wasn't one of the Hugginses who
didn't behave herself;--that is of the women," added Mrs. George,
remembering the misdeeds of a certain drunken uncle of her own, who
had come to great trouble in a matter of horseflesh. "And now, Mr.
Fenwick, let me beg that there mayn't be another word about her. I
don't know nothing of such women, nor what is their ways, and I don't
want. I never didn't speak a word to such a one in my life, and I
certainly won't begin under my own roof. People knows well enough
what's good for them to do and what isn't without being dictated to
by a clergyman. You'll excuse me, Mr. Fenwick; but I'll just make
bold to say a