The young ladies having promised that they would attempt no more private
feasts, Mrs. Middleton kissed, and forgave them. After school, Isabella,
accompanied by Miss Loxley, went out and bought the plaid cloak, which
was sent home directly. Next day, she longed for Diana to arrive with
the clothes, that she might enjoy her pleasure on receiving so useful a
gift, but, to her great disappointment they were brought home by another
mulatto woman, who informed Isabella that she was Diana's next door
neighbour, and that poor Diana having taken a violent cold from being
out in the snow-storm, was now confined to her bed with the rheumatism.
"Ah!" thought Isabella, "perhaps if she had had this good warm cloak to
go home in, the day before yesterday, she might have escaped the
rheumatism. I see now that whenever we allow ourselves to be persuaded
to do a thing which we know to be wrong, evil is sure to come from it."