Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/179

 would be different, because then we could speak about her with the force and courage that we should have. But we don't know, and that's the trouble."

Miss Herrick became serious.

"I did n't know it was so bad as that," she said quietly. She looked at the others with a question in her glance. Even Mrs. Ogilvie lowered her head in reflective consideration of Miss Imboden's statement.

"I had not realized," continued the hostess, gravely, "that it had gone so far. The problem has seemed to me a very simple one—no problem at all. Whatever the girl has been, she is now all that she should be, so far as we know. We know how hard she works, how plainly she lives, how lonely she is except for our affection and our companionship. If she has done wrong and is trying to make amends, this is no time for us to push her back. Surely, as her friends, we should give her all the help we can. I don't wish to dictate or to suggest to any one of you what her course should be, but to me we seem very smug and virtuous as we sit here criticising this girl from our own self-assured