Then she faintly tried to bring the subject to the notice of the mother. This was done with many misgivings, and with much difficulty, for it was not easy to get the conversation turned on duties and possible failures. Somehow, it was always a very different view the two took of things, when they had their long talks together. It was always of herself that Mrs. Andrews talked--always of her sufferings, her wrongs. When your friend is posturing for a martyr, it is hard to get her into an attitude of penitence without hurting her feelings. When she is bewailing the faults of others, it is embarrassing to turn the office into a confession of her own. Missy entered on her task humbly, knowing that it would be a hard one. She did not realize why it would be so hard. She had a romantic pity for her friend. She would not see her faults. Indeed, any one might have been blinded, who began with a strong admiration. When a woman is too ill to be talked to about her duties even, it is hard to expect her to perform them with rigor. When Missy, baffled and humbled, returned from that unfortunate mission, she acknowledged to herself she had attempted an impossibility. "She cannot see, she never has seen--probably she never will be obliged to see, what neglect her children are suffering from. She is too ill to be able to take in anything outside her sick room. The cross laid on her requires all her strength. It is cruelty to ask her to bear anything more. I am ashamed to have had the thought." So she turned to the poor little children so sadly orphaned, as it seemed to her, and with tenderness, tried to lighten their lot, and shield them from the tyrannies and negligences of their attendants. Little Jay lived at his new friend's house, ate at her table, almost slept in her bosom. He naturally preferred this to the cold slatternliness of his own home, and he was rarely missed or inquired for. "He might have been in the bay for the past five hours, for all the servants know about it," said Mrs. Varian, to whom all this was an anxiety and depression. "Don't you think, Missy, you give them an excuse in keeping him here so much? They naturally will say, if anything happens, they thought he was with you, and that you take him away for such long drives and walks, they never know where to find him." "My dear mamma," cried Missy, "don't you think the wretches would find an excuse for whatever they did? Is their duplicity to make it right for me to abandon my poor little man to them?" "At least always report it at the house when you take him away for half a day." So after that, Missy was careful to make known her plan at the Andrews' before she took Jay away for any long excursion. She would stop at the door in her little pony-carriage, and lifting out Jay, would send him in to say to a pampered menial at the door, that they need not be uneasy about him if he did not come back till one or two o'clock.