“That’s a deep question, little woman—the rehabilitation of love. In romances, it happens often enough; but I am an old fellow, and I never knew a case in actual life. It is like small-pox, I suspect, and never breaks out the second time. “But people do love deeply the second time.” “Yes. I see my comparison is not well chosen; well, like the water of a river which never passes over its bed but once.” While the doctor was conversing with Susie, Mrs. Forest was also engaged in her service, though with motives wholly different from those actuating the doctor, who talked to her to give her strength and self-confidence. He had never taken the trouble to have her sit by him, before the discovery of her sad condition, and seeing how deeply she appreciated his attention to her, made the giving of it very pleasant to him. Mrs. Forest, during her ride, called on old Mrs. Buzzell, who lived a very solitary life with her one old servant, to see if she would not receive Susie in her disgrace. Mrs. Forest was careful to mention all Susie’s good qualities, and Mrs. Buzzell at first felt inclined to assent because she was lonely, and had observed Susie with much interest whenever she had visited at the doctor’s house, and felt quite attracted to her; but some way she sniffed in the air that Mrs. Forest’s society notions were at the bottom of this move of hers, and so her reply was rather galling to one of Mrs. Forest’s refinement. “Well, I will try to help her, and, as you say, no doubt the other ladies of our church will do the same; but if your house is too highly respectable to shelter her, of course mine is, and so there’s an end of that.” This was Mrs. Forest’s last call upon Mrs. Buzzell. Their friendship, such as it was, had lasted twenty years, and thus it was brought to a sudden end, by wounding each other’s vanity. While they confined their mutual interests to gossip, and to superficial considerations of things generally, they met as on a bridge; but when deeper questions arose the bridge fell through, and they found themselves separated as by an impassable torrent. When Mrs. Forest had gone, Mrs. Buzzell questioned whether she herself had acted in a Christian spirit, and she was forced to confess that she had not. She thought, indeed, that she was very sorry, and anxious to apologize; but in fact her regret amounted to very little, for she would have been drawn and quartered in her present mood before she would have taken Susie in, after Mrs. Forest’s presumption.