Australian Tales - Setis

when they will know that the helpless girl whose character they so
cruelly assailed was as chaste as an infant, and that their wicked
insinuations were utterly groundless. Emily Green was a noble-spirited
girl, well educated, and piously trained. Her disposition was too refined
for Mrs. Wen and Mrs. Cackle, and their gossiping connections. She
treated them with neighbourly courtesy, but avoided a closer intimacy.
Hence their dislike to her, and their plots against her reputation. The
gentleman whose visits to her house had given rise to the innuendoes
which had so fatally injured her, was an eminent physician, who had
kindly called to see her sick mother, at the recommendation of a friend of
the afflicted. Poor Emily! slanderers will by-and-bye see her
“righteousness as clear as the light,” but in the meantime they had better
“take heed to their ways,” or a totally opposite judgment will at that day
be passed upon their lives.
* * * * *
Open rebuke is sometimes seasonable, and friendly warning or reproof
— judiciously given — is often useful; but nothing can be said in favour
of covert fault-finding and backbiting. It is cowardly, mischievous, and
sinful. “He that winketh with the eye causeth sorrow.” Sorrowfully true
has that been proved by a host of unfortunate victims of malice and
uncharitableness. Many a worthy man and woman's good reputation has
been ruined by a wink, or a significant shrug; perhaps accompanied with
a hypocritical expression of pity. Many noble actions, offsprings of true
philanthropy, have been condemned by a sinister look, or belied by a
mysterious elevation of the eyebrows, or some other facial contortion,
slyly meant to impute selfish and other unworthy motives too base to be
expressed in words. Many pure-minded young girls have had their fair
fame blasted by the breath of envious prudes, who, at the same time,
have appeared to commiserate the failings of their victims, well knowing,
too, that the charges against their virtue were malicious falsehoods.
“I am very sorry for the poor thing,” whispers Mrs. Gabb, across her
counter, to a twopenny customer. “She has had heavy trials certainly, but
that's not an excuse for acting as she does. She will never be able to pay
her way, I'm sure. It is a thousand pities to see a widow, with three young
children, setting them such a sad example. Drink is a great evil, and, of
course, leads to everything else that is bad. Those friends who subscribed
money to start her, don't know of her doings, that's plain; and I shouldn't
like to tell them. Don't mention it again, will you? At any rate, don't say
that I told you.”
Ugh! you old sinner! I should like to make you eat a bottle of mustard!
Are you not ashamed of launching such gross fabrications, to ruin that
poor widow, who is striving to train up her little children in the fear of