ill speak
to my character and also to my experience as a nurse. If it would be in
any way satisfactory to give you a second reference--"

"Quite needless, Mrs. Mosey."

"Permit me to thank you again, miss. I was at home this evening, when
Mrs. Ellmother called at my lodgings. Says she, 'I have come here,
Elizabeth, to ask a favor of you for old friendship's sake.' Says I, 'My
dear, pray command me, whatever it may be.' If this seems rather a hasty
answer to make, before I knew what the favor was, might I ask you to
bear in mind that Mrs. Ellmother put it to me 'for old friendship's
sake'--alluding to my late husband, and to the business which we carried
on at that time? Through no fault of ours, we got into difficulties.
Persons whom we had trusted proved unworthy. Not to trouble you further,
I may say at once, we should have been ruined, if our old friend Mrs.
Ellmother had not come forward, and trusted us with the savings of her
lifetime. The money was all paid back again, before my husband's
death. But I don't consider--and, I think you won't consider--that the
obligation was paid back too. Prudent or not prudent, there is nothing
Mrs. Ellmother can ask of me that I am not willing to do. If I have put
myself in an awkward situation (and I don't deny that it looks so) this
is the only excuse, miss, that I can make for my conduct."

Mrs. Mosey was too fluent, and too fond of hearing the sound of her own
eminently persuasive voice. Making allowance for these little drawbacks,
the impression that she produced was decidedly favorable; and, however
rashly she might have acted, her motive was beyond reproach. Having said
some kind words to this effect, Emily led her back to the main interest
of her narrative.

"Did Mrs. Ellmother give no reason for leaving my aunt, at such a time
as this?" she asked.

"The very words I said to her, miss."

"And what did she say, by way of reply?"

"She burst out crying--a thing I have never known her to do before, in
an experience of twenty years."

"And she really asked you to take her place here, at a moment's notice?"

"That was just what she did," Mrs. Mosey answered. "I had no need to
tell her I was astonished; my lips spoke for me, no doubt. She's a hard
woman in speech and manner, I admit. But there's more feeling in her
than you would suppose. 'If you are the good friend I take you for,' she
says, 'don't ask me for reasons; I am doing what is forced on me, and
doing it wi