There was a diamond ring. Not for me; because "he" had been too poor to offer me one. But I could give it to him. No,—that wouldn't do. He wouldn't wear it,—nor a pin of ditto. He had said, simplicity in dress was good economy and always good taste. No. Then something else,—that wouldn't wear, wouldn't tear, wouldn't lose, rust, break.
As to clothes, to which I swung back in despair,—this very Aunt Allen had always sent us all our clothes. So it would only be getting more, and wouldn't seem to be anything. She was an odd kind of woman,—generous in spots, as most people are, I believe. Laura and I both said, (to each other,) that, if she would allow us a hundred dollars a year each, we could dress well and suitably on it. But, instead of that, she sent us every year, with her best love, a trunk full of her own clothes, made for herself, and only a little worn,—always to be altered, and retrimmed, and refurbished: so that, although worth at first perhaps even more than two hundred dollars, they came, by their unfitness and non-fitness, to be worth to us only three-quarters of that sum; and Laura and I reckoned that we lost exactly fifty dollars a year by Aunt Allen's queerness. So much for our gratitude! Laura and I concluded it would be a good lesson to us about giving; and she had whispered to me something of the same sort, when I insisted on dressing Betsy Ann Hemmenway, a little mulatto, in an Oriental caftan and trousers, and had promised her a red sash for her waist. To be sure, Mrs. Hemmenway despised the whole thing, and said she "wouldn't let Betsy Ann be dressed up like a circus-rider, for nobody"; and that she should "wear a bonnet and mantilly, like the rest of mankind." Which, indeed, she did,—and her bonnet rivalled the coiffures of Paris in brilliancy and procrastination; for it never came in sight till long after its little mistress. However, of that by-and-by. I was only too glad that Aunt Allen had not sent me another silk gown "with her best love, and, as she was only seventy, perhaps it might be useful." No,—here was the fifty-dollar note, thank Plutus!
But then, what to do with it? Sleeping, that was the question. Waking, that was the same.
At twelve o'clock Mr. Sampson came to dine with us, and to say he was the happiest of men.
"That is, of course, I shall be, next week," said he, smiling and correcting himself. "But I am rather happy now; for I've got my case, and Shore has sailed for Australia. Good riddance, and may he never touch these shores any more!"
He had been shaking hands with everybody, he said,—and was so glad to be out of it!
"Now that it is all over, I wish you would tell me why you are so glad, when you honestly believe the man guilty," said I.
"Oh, my child, you are supposing the law to be perfect. Suppose the old English law to be in force now, making stealing a capital offence. You wouldn't hang a starving woman or child who stole the baker's loaf from your window-sill this morning before Polly had time to take it in, would you? Yet this was the law until quite lately."
"After all, I don't quite see either how you can bear to defend him, if you think him guilty, or be glad to have him escape, if he is,—I mean, supposing the punishment to be a fair one."
"Because I am a frail and erring man, Delphine, and like to get my case. If my client is guilty,—as we will suppose, for the sake of argument, he is,—he will not be likely to stop his evil career merely because he has got off now, and will be caught and hanged next time, possibly. If he does stop sinning, why, so much the better to have time for repentance, you know."