“No,” with a wave of her hand, as both of her granddaughters made a motion to rise, “Silence, thee is apt to be hasty and might say more than was seemly; and Patience, thee inclines to be timid, and might not say as much as was needful. Thy mother is the one to go; she has both prudence and courage.” “Oh, how good you are to me!” Rose exclaimed. “And never so good as now! I thought you would believe me, I just felt it would kill me if you didn’t, and now that I know you do I won’t be afraid of anything.” Mrs. Blossom was already wrapping herself in her cloak. “Come, Rose, put on your things; the sooner this is sifted the better,” and Rose, as many another had done before her, felt a new comfort and strength in Mrs. Blossom’s strength. They found Mr. Fifield and his sister hardly less excited than Rose. “You cannot regret, Mrs. Blossom, any more than I do, this most distressing occurrence,” and Mr. Nathan rubbed his flushed bald head with his red silk handkerchief. “I would rather have given the money twice over than have had it happen. But I must say that it is no more than I expected when my sisters persisted, against my judgment, in bringing into the house a girl of whose ancestors they knew nothing, and who most likely is the child of some of the foreign paupers who are flooding our shores. I’m sorry, though not surprised, that it has ended as it has.” Mr. Nathan was really troubled and sorry, as he said, but he could not help a spark of self-satisfaction that he had been proven in the right and his sisters in the wrong. As for Miss Eudora, keenly mortified at the turn matters had taken, her former friendliness to Rose only increased her present indignation. “It’s not only the loss of the money,” she exclaimed, “but the ingratitude of it, after all our kindness to her, and I gave her my pink muffler; she never could have done what she has if she had not been really hardened.” “But what proof have you that she took the money?” asked Mrs. Blossom. “As you say she is a stranger to us all, a friendless, homeless orphan, whose condition is a claim to our charity as well as our generosity.” “Proof,” echoed Mr. Nathan. “Pretty plain proof I should call it, and I’ve served three terms as Justice of the Peace. Last Saturday the money was safe in its place of concealment. This morning I surprised her there and her confusion on discovery was almost evidence enough of itself. When I look for the package it is gone, and during this time not a soul outside the immediate family has been in the house. I regret the fact, but every circumstance points to her as the guilty one.” “For all that,” Mrs. Blossom’s voice was calmly even, “I believe there is some mistake. At the Refuge they told Patience they had always found her truthful and honest, and while she was with us we never saw anything to make us doubt that she was perfectly trusty. I did not even know of her meddling with what she ought not to.”