“Oh, there’s where you found it out? Little Jess has told on me. Oh, but I’ll skin her for it. I’ll scratch her brown eyes out! I’ll——”
“Hush, Miss Scrimp. You will not in any way dare to injure the poor girl. I have not said she was a witness. I have said there were at first two witnesses—you, in your own confession, make the third. I need no more. You can go to your room, while I put on my things and go for an officer.”
“Oh, mercy!” screamed Miss Scrimp, “don’t have me arrested. I did do it. I did read the letter. There were only two lines of reading in it, and I couldn’t make nothin’ out o’ them. Oh, dear, dear, it will be the ruin of me—the everlastin’ ruin. Oh, do have mercy on a poor creetur’ that has always been as good to you as she knew how.”
And Miss Scrimp threw herself on her knees on the bare, uncarpeted floor, and with tears streaming down her sallow cheeks, looked in agony on the girl who held her at her mercy.
“Some one has stolen the letter off my shelf, where I hid it,” she moaned. “If they hadn’t I would have brought it right up to you. Oh, do pity me, Miss Hattie. I was so put out ’cause I couldn’t find out who was a writin’ to you from Californy. Do forgive me; I’ll never, never do so again.”
“Get up and sit down,” said Hattie. “Never kneel except to the Father above, and of Him ask forgiveness. If I should abstain from arresting you for this crime you must promise me several things and keep your promises, too, or I shall not keep mine. And you must answer several questions truly. On yourself now will depend my action.”
“Oh, I’ll promise anything, and keep it, too, and I’ll answer all you ask, if you’ll only not have me arrested. I know I did wrong, I knew it all the time I was doing it, but it seemed as if I couldn’t help it.”
“Promise me from this time on to treat poor Jessie Albemarle kindly, never to whip her, never even to scold her without she is at fault,” said Hattie.
“I promise,” sobbed Miss Scrimp.
“And promise if one of the poor girls, or any of them, are taken sick, not to treat her or them inhumanly, and send them off to suffer, but to wait till they can recover and pay for their board and nursing.”