Good Mrs. Merrill’s breath was a little taken away by this extremely scrupulous speech.  She also began to feel a misgiving about the cause of the visit, but she managed to say something polite in reply.

“I have come about Cynthia,” announced Miss Lucretia, without further preliminaries.

“About Cynthia?” faltered Mrs. Merrill.

Miss Lucretia opened a reticule at her waist and drew forth a newspaper clipping, which she unfolded and handed to Mrs. Merrill.

“Have you seen this?” she demanded.

Mrs. Merrill took it, although she guessed very well what it was, glanced at it with a shudder, and handed it back.

“Yes, I have read it,” she said.

“I have come to ask you, Mrs. Merrill” said Miss Lucretia, “if it is true.”

Here was a question, indeed, for the poor lady to answer!  But Mrs. Merrill was no coward.

“It is partly true, I believe.”

“Partly?” said Miss Lucretia, sharply.

“Yes, partly,” said Mrs. Merrill, rousing herself for the trial; “I have never yet seen a newspaper article which was wholly true.”

“That is because newspapers are not edited by women,” observed Miss Lucretia.  “What I wish you to tell me, Mrs. Merrill, is this:  how much of that article is true, and how much of it is false?”

“Really, Miss Penniman,” replied Mrs. Merrill, with spirit, “I don’t see why you should expect me to know.”

“A woman should take an intelligent interest in her husband’s affairs, Mrs. Merrill.  I have long advocated it as an entering wedge.”

“An entering wedge!” exclaimed Mrs. Merrill, who had never read a page of the Woman’s Hour.

“Yes.  Your husband is the president of a railroad, I believe, which is largely in that state.  I should like to ask him whether these statements are true in the main.  Whether this Jethro Bass is the kind of man they declare him to be.”

Mrs. Merrill was in a worse quandary than ever.  Her own spirits were none too good, and Miss Lucretia’s eye, in its search for truth, seemed to pierce into her very soul.  There was no evading that eye.  But Mrs. Merrill did what few people would have had the courage or good sense to do.

“That is a political article, Miss Penniman,” she said, “inspired by a bitter enemy of Jethro Bass, Mr, Worthington, who has bought the newspaper from which it was copied.  For that reason, I was right in saying that it is partly true.  You nor I, Miss Penniman, must not be the judges of any man or woman, for we know nothing of their problems or temptations.  God will judge them.  We can only say that they have acted rightly or wrongly according to the light that is in us.  You will find it difficult to get a judgment of Jethro Bass that is not a partisan judgment, and yet I believe that that article is in the main a history of the life of Jethro Bass.  A partisan history, but still a history.  He has unquestionably committed many of the acts of which he is accused.”