surrounded. "At length the day came for my discharge. The matron inquired of me where I was going; but I would not tell her; I would not acknowledge that I had a sister--partly out of mere perverseness, and partly out of an angry sense of honour; for I was a country-bred woman, and attached to the thought of 'going into a hospital' a certain idea of shame and degradation, such as country people attach to 'going on the parish', and I was too proud to let folk know that my sister had a sister in an hospital, when she clearly flinched from having as much said of her. "Well, finding I was not in a communicative humour, the matron asked no more questions; but, giving me a bundle containing a few articles of wearing apparel, and a small donation of money, bade me farewell; and without saying half as much in the way of gratitude as I ought to have said, I walked out from the hospital garden into the wide streets of London. I did not go straight to my old lodgings, or to the house of the doctor who had been so kind to me; but I directed my steps to an inn in Holborn, and took a place in the stage-cart for Stratford. As I rode slowly to my sister's town I thought within myself how I should treat her. Somehow my heart had softened a great deal towards her during the few last days; a good spirit within me had set me thinking of how she had helped me to nurse my husband and baby--how she had accompanied me when I followed them to their graves--how she and her husband had sacrificed themselves so much to assist me in my trial; and the recollection of these kindnesses and proofs of sisterly love, I am thankful to know, made me judge Martha much less harshly. Yes! yes! I would forgive her! She had never offended me before! She had not wronged me seven times, or seventy times seven, but only _once_! After all, how much she had done for me! Who was I, that I should forget all that she had done, and judge her only by what she had left undone? "The stage-cart reached Stratford as the afternoon began to close into evening; and when I alighted from it, I started off at a brisk pace, and walked to my sister's cottage that stood on the outskirts of the town. Strange to say, as I got nearer and nearer to her door my angry feelings became fainter and fainter, and all my loving memories of her strong affection for me worked so in me that my knees trembled beneath me, and my eyes were blinded with tears--though, if I had trusted my deceitful, wicked, malicious tongue to speak, I should still have declared she was a bad, heartless, worthless, sister.