_Rougissons,
taisons-nous, et partons."_
She now changed her residence, and withdrew politely from her old
associates, courting two classes only, the good and the poor. She had
always supported her mother and sister; but now charity became her
system. The following is characteristic:
A gentleman who had greatly admired this dashing actress met one day, in
the suburbs, a lady in an old black silk gown and a gray shawl, with a
large basket on her arm. She showed him its contents--worsted stockings
of prodigious thickness--which she was carrying to some of her
_proteges._
"But surely that is a waste of your valuable time," remonstrated her
admirer. "Much better buy them."
"But, my good soul," replied the representative of Sir Harry Wildair,
"you can't buy them. Nobody in this wretched town can knit worsted hose
except Woffington."
Conversions like this are open to just suspicion, and some did not fail
to confound her with certain great sinners, who have turned austere
self-deceivers when sin smiled no more. But this was mere conjecture. The
facts were clear, and speaking to the contrary. This woman left folly at
its brightest, and did not become austere. On the contrary, though she
laughed less, she was observed to smile far oftener than before. She was
a humble and penitent, but cheerful, hopeful Christian.
Another class of detractors took a somewhat opposite ground.
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