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The backward swing, and other stories, by A.L.O.E.
The backward swing and other stories by ALOE Author:Charlotte Maria Tucker Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: into line, and march off to the Hall. Mary May is not going with you ; I will remain with her here for awhile." The children formed into line; they had too mu... more »ch pleasure before them to be much cast down by the sight of Mary's sorrow, though they wished much to know who had burned a hole in her sampler and bag. Only Patty lingered behind, anxious to comfort her sister, till Dame Dexter bade her follow her companions, who, laughing and chatting, were on their way to the Hall. As soon as the mistress and her pupil were alone together, the dame laid her hand on the shoulder of Mary, and. looking her full in the face, said graveh-, " It was you, then, who took the vitriol yesterday evening out of my press. What led you to do such a thing, Mary May?" " I did not mean—that is—I thought —I took it for the syrup," stammered forth Mary. " Ah ! my child," said Dame Dexter, sadly, " you are not the first one to expect to find sin as sweet as syrup, and to find it at last like a burning flame! You thought that you could steal a little of the syrup without the theft being found out; but though not always, perhaps, in this world, most surely in the next will the Lord's words be fulfilled,—' There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known' (Matt. x. 26). If you could hide a sin in darkness from every fellow-creature, you could not hide it from God, and he will make secret things to be open as day in the sight of angels and men." Mary trembled at the thought. " Oh ! may what has happened to you, Mary," her mistress went on, " engravedeeply in your mind the warning in Scripture against possessing ill-gotten gain. That warning is specially addressed, indeed, to the rich, but is also suited to guard the poor from daring to take anything that ...« less