e penitence of Mr. Thomas Dodds might be a very dear
affair after all, in so much as terror is a condition of the soul which,
of all we are doomed to experience, is the most difficult to bear,
especially if it is a terror of divine wrath. On his return to his house
in the evening, he found that Mrs. Mary had taken him at his word and
decamped, but not without providing herself with as good a share of the
"goods in communion" as she could, perhaps, at two or three returns,
carry off. So was she like Zebulun in all save her righteousness, for
she "rejoiced in her going out;" nay, she had some reason, for she had
discovered that in a secret drawer of an old cabinet there was a pose of
gold collected by the industrious hands of Mrs. Janet, and unknown to
her husband, every piece of which she carried off in spite of all fear
of the spectre, which, if a sensible one, might have been supposed to be
more irritated at this heedless spoliation than at all the Jezebel had
yet done, with the exception of the counselling her death in the deep
hole of the North Loch. On seeing all this robbery, Mr. Dodds became
more and more aware of the bad exchange he had made by killing his good
spouse to enable him to take another, who had merely found more favour
in his eyes by reason of her good looks; and we may augur how much
deeper his feeling of regret would have been, had he known the secret
pose, so frugally and prudently laid up, perhaps for his sake, at least
for the sake of both, when disease or old age might overtake them, in a
world where good and evil, pleasure and pain, appear to be fixed
quantities, only shoved from one to another by wisdom and prudence, yet
sometimes refusing to be moved even by these means.

After satisfying himself of the full extent of the robbery, which, after
all, he had brought upon himself, and very richly deserved, he sat down
upon a chair and began to moralize, after the manner of those late
penitents who have found themselves out to be either rogues or
fools--the number of whom comprehends, perhaps, all mankind. He had
certainly good reason to be contrite. The angel in the house had become
a spectre, and she who was no angel, either in the house or out of it,
had carried off almost everything of any value he possessed. Nor did he
stop at mere unspoken contrition, he bewailed in solemn tones his
destiny, and then began to cast up all the perfections of good Janet,
the more perfect and beautiful these seem