“O, ho!” said Mr. Byers, “it is very easy to see through all this, now that we have a little light on the subject. How happened it, Mrs. Hastings, that the widow’s peaches lodged in your basket?”
“Well, Mr. Byers,” returned aunt Betsey, tartly, “if you must know, I will tell you. Please hold up your lantern, and if you look carefully, you will perceive that one branch of that tree hangs a little over our orchard; therefore all the fruit on it belongs, by good rights, to us. I thought, since I was down here, I might as well take them now as at any time, and I defy all the world to find fault with me. What’s right is right, anyhow, let people say what they will.”
Aunt Betsey had stepped down from the wall, and now stood before them with her dress all in tatters, her arms akimbo, and her head thrust forward, looking the very picture of defiance.
“Woman!” said Mr. Byers, gravely, as he gave her a contemptuous poke with his cane—“I am ashamed of you! you are a disgrace to humanity in general, and your sex in particular. What is legally right is not always morally so; and for you, with your abundance, to steal peaches from a poor widow woman, is, to say the least, a sin in the sight of God, for which you have been justly punished.”
“Friends!” he added in a louder tone, as he turned to the group behind him, which had gradually augmented till the whole population of the village seemed to be present, “this woman is more to be pitied than blamed, for to carry such a narrow contracted heart in the bosom, is the greatest curse that can fall upon any human being, and for the sake of that Christian charity which thinketh no evil, let us hush the matter up as soon as possible.”
“Yes,” said the editor, significantly, “I shall hush it up according to my usual custom. I have a very excellent method of disposing of such matters.”
Aunt Betsey burst into tears. Her husband came up and offered his arm. She took it and walked home, accompanied by such an escort as no woman in the village ever had before. Behind and before her went her neighbors and friends, talking over the matter with perfect freedom; and from their remarks the unhappy woman had not the least reason to doubt, that although they compassionated her sincerely, yet her inconsiderate act met with their unqualified condemnation. From that day (or we should rather say night) forth, aunt Betsey considered herself hopelessly disgraced in the eyes of the whole village, and to the end of her life, the very mention of peaches made her shudder. How true is it, that the ruling passion of one’s nature, however carefully guarded, will at some time or other betray itself.