“I know it, I feel it; and that it may also be for the last and only time is my reason for this appeal to you. There are persons who, seeing you here, would treat you with a mock deference, address you with a counterfeit respect, and go their ways; who would say to their selfish hearts, 'It is no concern of mine; why should it trouble me?' But I am not one of these. I carry a conscience in my breast; a conscience that holds its daily court, and will even to-morrow ask me, 'Have you been truthful, have you been faithful? When the occasion served to warn a fellow-creature of the shoal before him, did you cry out, “Take soundings! you are in shallow water,” or did you with slippery phrases gloss over the peril, because it involved no danger to yourself?'”
“Would that same conscience be kind enough to suggest that your present conduct is an impertinence, sir?”
“So it might, madam; just as the pilot is impertinent when he cries out, 'Hard, port! breakers ahead!'”
“I am therefore to infer, sir,” said she, with a calm dignity, “that my approach to a secret danger--of which I can have no knowledge--is a sufficient excuse for the employment of language on your part, that, under a less urgent plea, had been offensive?”
“Speak out, then, sir, and declare what it is.”
“Nay, madam, if the warning find no echo within, my words are useless. I have said I would ask you a question.”
“Will you answer it frankly? Will you give it all the weight and influence it should bear, and reply to it with that truthful spirit that conceals nothing?”
“What is your question, sir? You had better be speedy with it, for I don't much trust to my continued patience.”
I arose at this, and, passing behind the back of my chair, leaned my arms on the upper rail, so as to confront her directly; and then, in the voice of an accusing angel, I said, “Old woman, do you know where you are going?”
“I protest, sir,” said she, rising, with an indignation I shall not forget--“I protest, sir, you make me actually doubt if I know where I am!”
“Then let me tell you, madam,” said I, with the voice of one determined to strike terror into her heart--“let me tell you; and may my words have the power to awaken you, even now, to the dreadful consequences of what you are about!”