Simm,--her
fear of God, for once, yielding to her greater fear of man. The
embroidered collar, which she had been vigorously beating, dropped to
the floor, and she gazed at him with such terror and dismay in every
lineament, that he could not help being amused. He picked up the
collar, which, in her perturbation, she had not noticed, and said,--
"No, she has told me nothing; but I find her excited and ill, and I
have reason to believe it is connected with her visit here yesterday.
If it is anything relating to me, and which I have a right to know, you
would do me a great favor by enlightening me on the subject."
Mrs. Simm had not a particle of that knowledge in which Young America
is so great a proficient, namely, the "knowing how to get out of a
scrape." She was, besides, alarmed at the effect of her words on Ivy,
supposing nothing less than that the girl was in the last stages of a
swift consumption; so she sat down, and, rubbing her starchy hands
together, with many a deprecatory "you know," and apologetic "I am sure
I thought I was acting for the best," gave, considering her agitation,
a tolerably accurate account of the whole interview. Her interlocutor
saw plainly that she had acted from a sincere conscientiousness, and
not from a meddlesome, mischievous interference; so he only thanked her
for her kind interest, and suggested that he had now arrived at an age
when it would, perhaps, be well for him to conduct matters,
particularly of so delicate a nature, solely according to his own
judgment, He was sorry to have given her any trouble.
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