In the town where the Bloomfields had used to live, there had been a woman who had disappeared. Mrs. Bloomfield had gone looking for the woman, and had found out that she had left her husband and child because she had been afraid to tell her husband that she had gotten into debt. Her husband, who was exceedingly stingy and hard-hearted, had given her only a little bit of the money each month, but she, not being very gifted in the area of management, had not managed it well enough, and so had begun to buy the family's groceries on credit.
The bill had grown and grown until it was so great that the woman, who was afraid to tell her husband, had run away from home, leaving him and their child. She had gone to another town and gotten a job as a cleaning maid. Mrs. Bloomfield had tracked her down, and the woman had gone to live with her mother for the rest of her life, because her husband was so angry with her he did not want her to come back. I think her mother must have paid the bill, I don't remember. Her husband later passed away, and the child went to live with the mother and grandmother. Such a sad story! I don't know why Adela liked to listen to such a sad story, but apparently she did.
