“Yes, Jenks, I fell clemmed down yere, fur ever ’n ever.”
Then Jenks turned her round to the light, and gazed long into her innocent face, and finally declared that “she’d do; and he’d be blowed ef she wouldn’t do better’n Dick, and make her fortin quite tidy.”
So it was arranged that when Dick learned, Flo should learn also. She had never guessed what it meant, she had never the least clue to what it all was, until to-night.
But now a glimmering of the real state of the case stole over her. That supper was not honestly come by, so far things were plain. Once in his life Dick had broken his word to his dying mother, once at least he had been a thief. This accounted for his forced mirth, for his shamefaced manner. He and Jenks had stolen something, they were thieves.
But perhaps—and here Flo trembled and turned pale—perhaps there were worse things behind, perhaps the mysterious trade that Jenks was to teach them both was the trade of a thief, perhaps those nice eggs and carrots, those red herrings and bits of bacon, were stolen. She shivered again at the thought.
Flo was, as I said, a totally ignorant child; she knew nothing of God, of Christ, of the Gospel. Nevertheless she had a gospel and a law. That law was honesty, that gospel was her mother.
She had seen so much pilfering, and small and great stealing about her, she had witnessed so many apparently pleasant results arising from it, so many little luxuries at other tables, and by other firesides, that the law that debarred her from these things had often seemed a hard law to her. Nevertheless for her mother’s sake she loved that law, and would have died sooner than have broken it.
Dick had loved it also. Dick and she had many a conversation, when they sat over the embers in the grate last winter, on the virtues of honesty.
In the end they felt sure honesty would pay.
And Dick told her lots of stories about the boys who snatched things off the old women’s stalls, or carried bread out of the bakers’ shops; and however juicy those red apples were, and however crisp and brown those nice fresh loaves, the boys who took them had guilty looks, had downcast faces, and had constant fear of the police in their hearts.