“So you think there’s no harm in stealing?”
“No harm in the world, dear! Do you think my own child would have been transported for it, if there had been any harm in it? and what’s more, would the blessed woman in the book here have written her life as she has done, and given it to the world, if there had been any harm in faking? She, too, was what they call a thief and a cut-purse; ay, and was transported for it, like my dear son; and do you think she would have told the world so, if there had been any harm in the thing? Oh, it is a comfort to me that the blessed woman was transported, and came back—for come back she did, and rich too—for it is an assurance to me that my dear son, who was transported too, will come back like her.”
“What was her name?”
“Her name, blessed Mary Flanders.”
“Will you let me look at the book?”
“Yes, dear, that I will, if you promise me not to run away with it.”
I took the book from her hand; a short thick volume, at least a century old, bound with greasy black leather. I turned the yellow and dog’s-eared pages, reading here and there a sentence. Yes, and no mistake! His pen, his style, his spirit might be observed in every line of the uncouth-looking old volume—the air, the style, the spirit of the writer of the book which first taught me to read. I covered my face with my hand, and thought of my childhood—
“This is a singular book,” said I at last; “but it does not appear to have been written to prove that thieving is no harm, but rather to show the terrible consequences of crime: it contains a deep moral.”
“A deep what, dear?”
“A—but no matter, I will give you a crown for this volume.”