Second-hand! Then perhaps it was the very same chair. She turned it up to look at the bottom, and there, sure enough, was her mother's name—Amber Fletcher—written by her father's own hand.
"How glad and surprised she would be to have it back again," she thought. "She said she missed it more than any other piece of furniture in the house."
Her hand was already in her pocket, when the shopman was called into the next room, and he excused himself, promising to return in a few minutes.
Left alone, Ethel walked round the chair, viewing it first in one light, and then in another, till she actually made up her mind to spend for it the gold piece, which, after all, was not hers to spend.
Priding herself upon her own and her father's honesty, she was just about to do a mean and dishonest thing, when she was saved from it by an accident. An accident! Let us rather say a Providence, for though Ethel had come out without praying for herself, that she might not be led into temptation, yet a devout father and mother had prayed for her, and who can doubt that their prayers were answered?
The shopman had gone into the next room, as we remarked, to attend to other customers, and Ethel was roused from her meditations by hearing him say, "Yes, ma'am, it is second-hand, but just as good as new. It was made to Mr. Fletcher's order, and he was universally allowed to have the best taste in furniture of any gentleman in town."
"Did the Fletchers sell their furniture? I was not aware of that," said the lady, apparently speaking to a companion. "I suppose it was an honest failure, then?"
"Oh, perfectly so, perfectly so," said another voice, in which Ethel at once recognized Mr. Beckford's measured tones. "Mr. Fletcher is an honorable man—most honorable—a credit to the Church and the State; and from what I have lately seen of his daughter, I should judge he was bringing up his children to tread in his steps. An excellent child, ma'am—an excellent child."
Ethel's face crimsoned till it was of a deeper hue than any of the chairs. Here was Mr. Beckford speaking of her in the warmest terms of praise, at the very time when she was about to cheat him. Yes, cheat was the word. Ethel now saw, through all her own sophistry, the true nature of the act she had been meditating. She looked at the little chair again, but it was with very different feelings.
"I learned my Catechism sitting on a stool by the side of that chair," she thought; "and how many times mother has heard me say my prayers when she was sitting in it! Oh, how could I ever think of doing such a mean, wicked thing! It would be as bad as what father explained to us last Sunday—robbery for burnt sacrifice. And I have been thinking myself so much better than poor dear Abby, just because she ran in debt for some things, while I was going to get what I wanted by downright stealing."