But the list of what Priscilla had done does not end
with this havoc among mothers. Had she not interrupted the decent
course of Mrs. Jones's dying, and snatched her back to a hankering
after the unfit? Had she not taught the entire village to break the
Sabbath? Had she not made all its children either sick or cross under
the pretence of giving them a treat? On the Monday she did something
else that was equally well-meaning, and yet, as I shall presently
relate, of disastrous consequences: she went round the village from
cottage to cottage making friends with the children's mothers and
leaving behind her, wherever she went, little presents of money. She
had found money so extraordinarily efficacious in the comforting of
Mrs. Jones that before she started she told Fritzing to fill her purse
well, and in each cottage it was made somehow so clear how badly
different things were wanted that the purse was empty before she was
half round the village and she had to go back for a fresh supply. She
was extremely happy that afternoon, and so were the visited mothers.
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