Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures

"Isn't it surprising, that a woman who is so well off in the world as Mrs. Comegys, should stoop to a petty act like this?"

"It is, certainly."

"Perhaps there is something wrong here," and Mrs. Grimes placed her finger to her forehead and looked sober.

"How do you mean?" asked the friend.

"You've heard of people's having a dishonest monomania. Don't you remember the case of Mrs. Y–?"

"Very well."

"She had every thing that heart could desire. Her husband was rich, and let her have as much money as she wanted. I wish we could all say that, Mrs. Florence, don't you?"

"It would be very pleasant, certainly, to have as much money as we wanted."

"But, notwithstanding all this, Mrs. Y– had such a propensity to take things not her own, that she never went into a dry goods store without purloining something, and rarely took tea with a friend without slipping a teaspoon into her pocket. Mr. Y– had a great deal of trouble with her, and, in several cases, paid handsomely to induce parties disposed to prosecute her for theft, to let the matter drop. Now do you know that it has occurred to me that, perhaps, Mrs. Comegys is afflicted in this way? I shouldn't at all wonder if it were so."

"Hardly."

"I'm afraid it is as I suspect. A number of suspicious circumstances have happened when she has been about, that this would explain. But for your life, Mrs. Florence, don't repeat this to any mortal!"

"I shall certainly not speak of it, Mrs. Grimes. It is too serious a matter. I wish I had not heard of it, for I can never feel toward Mrs. Comegys as I have done. She is a very pleasant woman, and one with whom it is always agreeable and profitable to spend an hour."

"It is a little matter, after all," remarked Mrs. Grimes, "and, perhaps, we treat it too seriously."

"We should never think lightly of dishonest practices, Mrs. Grimes. Whoever is dishonest in little things, will be dishonest in great things, if a good opportunity offer. Mrs. Comegys can never be to me what she has been. That is impossible."

"Of course you will not speak of it again."

"You need have no fear of that."

A few days after, Mrs. Raynor made a call upon a friend, who said to her,

"Have you heard about Mrs. Comegys?"

"What about her?"

"I supposed you knew it. I've heard it from half a dozen persons. It is said that Perkins, through a mistake of one of his clerks, sent her home some fifteen or twenty yards of lawn more than she had paid for, and that, instead of sending it back, she kept it and made it up for her children. Did you ever hear of such a trick for an honest woman?"

"I don't think any honest woman would be guilty of such an act. Yes, I heard of it a few days ago as a great secret, and have not mentioned it to a living soul."

"Secret? bless me! it is no secret. It is in every one's mouth."

"Is it possible? I must say that Mrs. Grimes has been very indiscreet."

"Mrs. Grimes! Did it come from her in the first place?"

"Yes. She told me that she was present when the lawn came home, and saw Mrs. Comegys measure it, and heard her say that she meant to keep it."

"Which she has done. For I saw her in the street, yesterday, with a beautiful new lawn, and her little Julia was with her, wearing one precisely like it."

"How any woman can do so is more than I can understand."

"So it is, Mrs. Raynor. Just to think of dressing your child up in a frock as good as stolen! Isn't it dreadful?"

"It is, indeed!"

"Mrs. Comegys is not an honest woman. That is clear. I am told that this is not the first trick of the kind of which she has been guilty. They say that she has a natural propensity to take things that are not her own."

"I can hardly believe that."

"Nor can I. But it's no harder to believe this than to believe that she would cheat Perkins out of fifteen of twenty yards of lawn. It's a pity; for Mrs. Comegys, in every thing else, is certainly a very nice woman. In fact, I don't know any one I visit with so much pleasure."

Thus the circle of detraction widened, until there was scarcely a friend or acquaintance of Mrs. Comegys, near or remote, who had not heard of her having cheated a dry goods dealer out of several yards of lawn. Three, it had first been alleged; but the most common version of the story made it fifteen or twenty. Meantime, Mrs. Comegys remained in entire ignorance of what was alleged against her, although she noticed in two or three of her acquaintances, a trifling coldness that struck her as rather singular.

One day her husband, seeing that she looked quite sober, said—

"You seem quite dull to-day, dear. Don't you feel well?"

"Yes, I feel as well as usual, in body."

"But not in mind?"

"I do not feel quite comfortable in mind, certainly, though I don't know that I have any serious cause of uneasiness."

"Though a slight cause exists. May I ask what it is?"

"It is nothing more nor less than that I was coolly cut by an old friend to-day, whom I met in a store on Chesnut street. And as she is a woman that I highly esteem, both for the excellence of her character, and the agreeable qualities, as a friend, that she possesses. I cannot but feel a little bad about it. If she were one of that capricious class who get offended with you, once a month, for no just cause whatever, I should not care a fig. But Mrs. Markle is a woman of character, good sense and good feeling, whose friendship I have always prized."

"Was it Mrs. Markle?" said the husband, with some surprise.

"Yes."

"What can possibly be the cause?"

"I cannot tell."

"Have you thought over every thing?"

"Yes, I have turned and turned the matter in my mind, but can imagine no reason why she, of all others, could treat me coolly."

"Have you never spoken of her in a way to have your words misinterpreted by some evil-minded person—Mrs. Grimes, for instance—whose memory, or moral sense, one or the other, is very dull?"

"I have never spoken of her to any one, except in terms of praise. I could not do otherwise, for I look upon her as one of the most faultless women I know."

"She has at least shown that she possesses one fault."

"What is that?"