A shadow flitted over the face of Mrs. Lasette; she thought of her own daughter and how sad it would be to have her live in such a chilly atmosphere of social repression and neglect at a period of life when there was so much danger that false friendship might spread their lures for her inexperienced feet.  I will criticize, she said to herself, by creation.  I, too, have some social influence, if not among the careless, wine-bibbing, ease-loving votaries of fashion, among some of the most substantial people of A.P., and as long as Annette preserves her rectitude at my house she shall be a welcome guest and into that saddened life I will bring all the sunshine that I can.

Chapter XV

“Well mama,” said Mrs. Lasette’s daughter to her mother, “I cannot understand why you take so much interest in Annette.  She is very unpopular.  Scarcely any of the girls ever go with her, and even her cousin never calls for her to go to church or anywhere else, and I sometimes feel so sorry to see her so much by herself, and some of the girls when I went with her to the exposition, said that they wouldn’t have asked her to have gone with them, that she isn’t our set.”

“Poor child,” Mrs. Lasette replied; “I am sorry for her.  I hope that you will never treat her unkindly, and I do not think if you knew the sad story connected with her life that you would ever be unkind enough to add to the burden she has been forced to bear.”

“But mamma, Annette is so touchy.  Her aunt says that her tear bags must lay near her eyes and that she will cry if you look at her, and that she is the strangest, oddest creature she ever saw, and I heard she did not wish her to come.”

“Why, my dear child, who has been gossipping to you about your neighbors?”

“Why, Julia Thomas.”

“Well, my daughter, don’t talk after her; gossip is liable to degenerate into evil speaking and then I think it tends to degrade and belittle the mind to dwell on the defects and imperfections of our neighbors.  Learn to dwell on the things that are just and true and of good report, but I am sorry for Annette, poor child.”

“What makes her so strange, do you know?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Lasette somewhat absently.

“If you do, won’t you tell me?”

Again Mrs. Lasette answered in the same absent manner.

“Why mama, what is the matter with you; you say yes to everything and yet you are not paying any attention to anything that I say.  You seem like someone who hears, but does not listen; who sees, but does not look.  Your face reminds me of the time when I showed you the picture of a shipwreck and you said, ’My brother’s boat went down in just such a fearful storm.’”

“My dear child,” said Mrs. Lasette, rousing up from a mournful reverie, “I was thinking of a wreck sadder, far sadder than the picture you showed me.  It was the mournful wreck of a blighted life.”