CHAPTER XV.
THE HERITAGE OF PEACE.
The joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment; and the house that is built on the sand must needs fall to ruin at last.
Mr. Skinner received the box with his accustomed composure, though he turned deadly pale. It was an extraordinary coincidence that the box was found in the sandy ground. How it came there he was at a loss to conjecture.
"The less said about it the better," George Paterson remarked, "and you owe this boy a full apology."
"Well, it is possible there is a mistake somewhere. However, we will give the youngster the benefit of the doubt, and send him home to his mother."
"Doubt!" Maggie exclaimed vehemently; "doubt! You stole the box, Joe, and hid it in the garden behind your house. You were seen to bury it; you had better make a clean breast of it."
"Oh, spare him, Maggie Chanter!" poor infatuated Mrs. Skinner said. "Joe! Joe!"
Then, with a white face and an expression on it none who saw it will ever forget, Mr. Skinner, with a wave of his long thin hand, left the house.
Nothing more was ever heard of him. The crooked paths of deceit and dishonesty can have but one end, unless by God's grace those paths are forsaken, and the strait and narrow way chosen in their place. Poor Aunt Amelia had indeed reason to rue the day when she had listened to the flattering words of the wily man. He left her with an empty purse, a ruined custom, and a sore heart. But she was now delivered from one who in her folly she had trusted, and there were many who, hearing her story, pitied her, and gave back the custom they had withdrawn.