she, then, she
wrote, tell her father of the taking of the money? She trusted that I
might not think her overly bold, but if I did, it made no difference to
her, for she was rendered desperate on all sides. (Ah, friend Barbara! thy
father had ever such a cold reserve, that was not meant unkindly, but
nevertheless was overly severe.) She could trust me, for it was my own
money she had taken. (I bethink me it was but an odd trust at best.) She
had taken the money to send to the man she cared so much for: he was a
very poor man, and the congregation of which he was the hired preacher was
poor; and as they had built a church which they could not afford to pay
for, it was but in reason that they could not pay the minister of the
church. The church was what the world's people call "a split" from another
church--split because the people quarrelled about the Thirty-nine
Articles, whatever they be, one party wanting thirty-eight or forty, and
the other perhaps the original number. She knew that the minister was
woefully in debt; that no one would trust him any further; that he had
met and told her nothing at all of it; that he was duly polite to her,
and mentioned none of his affairs at all. (O Barbara! how thee shielded
him!) But she had questioned a woman who knew much of him, and the woman
had said that he must have money for a certain secret purpose, the nature
of which purpose the woman refused to tell, and that he was crazed for
money. Barbara had asked the woman if the purpose were a sinful or
shameful purpose, but the answer had been that it was the most holy one a
man could have. Then Barbara had looked upon his white face and knew of
his straits, and had pitied him. It was borne in upon her that she should
help him. "Thee would have felt so, I am assured," she wrote. Then looking
around her, confused by many and conflicting feelings, sad and grieving
for herself, having no one to go to in the greatest trial a woman can
have, she had seen but one thing to do: she called to mind Samuel Biddle,
and how generously he had acted toward her--more generously than she had
reason to suppose another man could ever do. Friend Biddle's letter to her
was couched in such kindly terms that she knew it had been no great
overthrow of feeling on his part to give her the liberty which she had
long debated with herself whether to accept or not; and had finally
concluded to do so. Then she had taken the money from her father's iron
safe. She