“Miss Devon, I’m surprised at you!  By no means; it would be the ruin of my establishment; not a girl would remain, and the character of my rooms would be lost for ever,” replied Mrs. King, goaded on by the relentless Cotton.

“But where will she go if you send her away?  Who will employ her if you inform against her?  What stranger will believe in her if we, who have known her so long, fail to befriend her now?  Mrs. King, think of your own daughters, and be a mother to this poor girl for their sake.”

That last stroke touched the woman’s heart; her cold eye softened, her hard mouth relaxed, and pity was about to win the day, when prudence, in the shape of Miss Cotton, turned the scale, for that spiteful spinster suddenly cried out, in a burst of righteous wrath: 

“If that hussy stays, I leave this establishment for ever!” and followed up the blow by putting on her bonnet with a flourish.

At this spectacle, self-interest got the better of sympathy in Mrs. King’s worldly mind.  To lose Cotton was to lose her right hand, and charity at that price was too expensive a luxury to be indulged in; so she hardened her heart, composed her features, and said, impressively: 

“Take off your bonnet, Cotton; I have no intention of offending you, or any one else, by such a step.  I forgive you, Rachel, and I pity you; but I can’t think of allowing you to stay.  There are proper institutions for such as you, and I advise you to go to one and repent.  You were paid Saturday night, so nothing prevents your leaving at once.  Time is money here, and we are wasting it.  Young ladies, take your seats.”

All but Christie obeyed, yet no one touched a needle, and Mrs. King sat, hurriedly stabbing pins into the fat cushion on her breast, as if testing the hardness of her heart.

Rachel’s eye went round the room; saw pity, aversion, or contempt, on every face, but met no answering glance, for even Christie’s eyes were bent thoughtfully on the ground, and Christie’s heart seemed closed against her.  As she looked her whole manner changed; her tears ceased to fall, her face grew hard, and a reckless mood seemed to take possession of her, as if finding herself deserted by womankind, she would desert her own womanhood.

“I might have known it would be so,” she said abruptly, with a bitter smile, sadder to see than her most hopeless tears.  “It’s no use for such as me to try; better go back to the old life, for there are kinder hearts among the sinners than among the saints, and no one can live without a bit of love.  Your Magdalen Asylums are penitentiaries, not homes; I won’t go to any of them.  Your piety isn’t worth much, for though you read in your Bible how the Lord treated a poor soul like me, yet when I stretch out my hand to you for help, not one of all you virtuous, Christian women dare take it and keep me from a life that’s worse than hell.”