ly, and
taking down an old broadsword that hung over the chimney-piece, "confess
this instant;" and he gave the weapon a portentous flourish. "Oh! dear
Richard, don't kill me, and I'll tell you all at once. Then I, (sob,) I,
(sob,) have cribbed (sob) out of the house-money every week to buy that
chest of drawers, and you've had bad dinners and suppers this month for
it; and (sobbing) that's all." He could just keep his countenance to
say--"And where have you hid this accursed thing?" "Oh, Richard! I have
never been able to use it; for I have covered it over with a blanket
ever since I had it, for fear of your seeing it. Oh! pray, forgive me!"
You need not be told how she went to church with a "clean breast," as
the saying is. It is an unadorned fact. Her husband used to tell it
every merry Christmas to his old friend-guests." Here you have the
story, Eusebius, as I had it thus dramatically (for I could not mend it)
from the lips of the narrator.

Is it your fault or your virtue, Eusebius, that you positively love
these errors of human nature? You ever say, you have no sympathy with or
for a perfect monster--if such there be--which you deny, and aver that
if you detect not the blot, it is but too well covered; and by that very
covering, for aught you know to the contrary, may be all blot. You would
have catalogued this good lady among your "right estimable and lovely
women!" and if you did not think that chest of drawers must be an
heirloom in the family, you would set about many odd means to get
possession of it. Yet I do verily believe that there are brutes that
would not have forgiven in their wives this error--that would argue
thus, You may sin, madam, against your Maker; but you shall not sin
against me. Is there not a story somewhere, of a wretched vagabond at
the confessional--dreadful were the crimes for which he was promised
absolution; but after all his compunctions, contortions, self-cursings,
breast-beatings, hand-wringings, out came the sin of sins--he had once
spit by accident upon the priest's robe, though he only meant to spit
upon the altar steps. Unpardonable offence! Never-to-be-forgiven wretch!
His life could not atone for it. And what had the friars, blue and grey,
been daily, hourly doing? You have been in Italy, Eusebius.

I have not yet told you the story for the telling which I began this
letter; and why I have kept it back I know not--it is not for the
importance of it; for it is of a poor simp