University of Virginia Library

9. IX.
FAUSTINA RETURNS MRS. APJOHN'S VISIT.

Faustina walked back toward the cooper's house,
with dubious and undecided steps at first, but gradually
quickening her pace as her doubts gave place to determination.
Why had she not thought of the Apjohns
before? They should help her. Would they dare to
refuse what she asked? And could she not compel
them, by threats, to lend her the money?

She reached the cooper's house. In her impetuous
impatience, she did not stop to knock, but would have
entered straight, without ceremony, had not the door
been locked. She hurried around to the kitchen door, —
that was fastened also. A shade of disappointment
passed over her; but it fell like the shadow of a cloud
on a rushing stream, without checking its course. Her
purpose could not be thwarted; though she might have
to wait.

Mrs. Apjohn was certainly not at home. Perhaps the
cooper was. So much the better; for it would be easier
to deal with him than with his wife. She hastened to
the shop. That was likewise shut and silent. Here
was an unforeseen difficulty.

Should she go and meet Tasso, and then come back
after the Apjohns had returned? Or should she go
home and wait? She could do nothing, think of nothing,
till this exciting business was over. If she could
only get into the house!

Then she remembered a circumstance which she had
several times observed, looking across from her own
house to her neighbor's. When Mrs. Apjohn was going
away and leaving John in the shop, it was her custom,
after putting on her bonnet and shawl and locking the
back door on the outside, to carry him something, which
Faustina conjectured was the key. But when John was
not there, she used to stoop down and secrete the said
something under the door-step; in order, probably, that
he could have the means of entering the house in case
he should come home before her. Faustina had also
observed that the one who returned first, on such occasions,
invariably took something from beneath the step
before unlocking the door.

What if the key were there now? She was back
again at the rear of the house in a moment. There she
stood, just long enough to look about her. Nobody was
in sight. No unneighborly watch-dog was there to interfere
with her operations, as Turk had interfered with
those of Mrs. Apjohn in the tomato-patch. Quickly
she put down her hand where she had seen Prudence put
down hers. She touched something metallic, smooth,
and cold. It was the door-key.

“I'll go in and wait anyway. There can't be any

harm in that,” was Faustina's excuse, as she unlocked
the door.

The next minute she was alone in the closed and silent
house.

She sat down and breathed. But she was too nervous
to remain long seated. She got up, and walked about,
and looked out of the windows, and peeped into the different
rooms. She listened to hear her neighbors coming;
yet she almost dreaded to have them come. Supposing
they should refuse her the money, and laugh
at her threats? Oh, if she was only sure they had
money!

In the bedroom she saw the chest as Tasso had described
it. She entered softly, hesitating with that superstitious
feeling which often haunts the visitor in a
still and empty house, especially if he has no rightful
business there. Perhaps Prudence was hid behind her
own petticoats that hung over the bed; or what if the
little cooper was tucked away in the corner behind the
bureau, on the lookout for burglars? Faustina just
tried the lid of the chest, and, finding it fastened, walked
back rather quickly to the kitchen, with starting and
creeping sensations in her nerves, which were not agreeable.

“Will they never come?” she said to herself. “I
won't wait much longer!”

She looked at the clock; but she forgot to notice the
time in the perturbation of thinking of the key which
Tasso said was kept hidden there. Summoning a bold

resolution, she stepped to the high mantel-piece, opened
the clock, and found, sure enough, a key hung up within
the case. She ran with it to the bedroom, and was
almost frightened to find that it fitted the chest.

Well, she might as well finish what she had begun.
Though the Apjohns should suddenly come in and catch
her, she could easily silence them by holding the tomatoes
over their heads. So she turned the key, and the
chest opened.

But here she met with an unexpected obstacle. The
till, in which she now firmly believed that there was
cash, was also locked; and Mrs. Apjohn, if she was the
prudent female we take her for, no doubt had the key
of it in her reticule. What was to be done? Break
open the slender till? That Faustina dared not do.
Abandon the search? That she would not. Into every
corner of the chest she thrust her hand, and overhauled
John Apjohn's shirts and Mrs. Apjohn's folded pillow-cases
and sheets and bedspreads, in pursuit of the missing
key. She often thought she heard footsteps, and
stopped to listen, then with trepidation renewed her
search.

But no key was to be found. She tried the key of
the clock-case and the winding-up key; but neither of
them would fit. Should she give up so? There was a
key in her bag; she would try that. It was too large.
Then she bethought her of the key to the case of jewels.
She tried it, — it was too small. No, it would enter!
she could turn it; and lo, the till was unlocked!

Ah, well was it for Faustina, who had condemned her
neighbor's trespass so severely, that there was no big
dog to pounce in upon her now, and arrest her in the
midst of an act that looked quite as much like larceny
as anything Prudence Apjohn ever did! It would be
interesting to know if she thought of the stolen tomatoes
then, and the remarks she had made on the occasion.
Alas for this poor human nature of ours, which prompts
us to pass sentence to-day upon the very sins we may
have been guilty of yesterday, or may commit to-morrow!
The more liable we ourselves are to yield to
temptation, the sterner our judgment is apt to be of
those who have fallen. Whereas the truly wise man,
who has known by experience what temptation is, and
has conquered it, is he of all others whose cloak of
charity is broadest and warmest.

Yet Faustina had never believed herself capable of
such an act as she was now committing. She had approached
the cooper's house full of virtuous indignation
against robbing and pilfering, and had the speech ready
by which she intended to humiliate the wrong-doer, and
exact indemnity for the wrong. And here she is, self-abandoned
to the sin which she had deemed so monstrous
and unpardonable in another!

For Tasso had spoken truly once. In the till there
was a pocket-book. In the pocket-book there was a
roll of bills. These she hastily opened, and folded up
again as hastily. With quivering fingers she had extracted
the sum she required, — a fifty-dollar note, the

sight of which had sent a thrill of terrified joy to her
soul. This she thrusts into her bosom. The rest of the
money she returns to the pocket-book, places the pocket-book
in the till, and locks the till with the key of the
jewel-case. Then, having smoothed the rumpled linen
in the chest as well as she can, she lets down the heavy
lid again, and locks it with the key, which she returns
to the clock-case.

All this has passed almost too quickly for thought.
But now, standing in the room, lingering and listening,
with tremors of heart, she begins to reflect, —

“Maybe they never'll know who took it. I'll threaten
to tell about the tomatoes if they go to make a fuss.”
But suppose she should meet them as she goes out?
This is now her great trouble. “Who cares?” she
says to herself. “I'll tell them I came to borrow some
money, and have taken it, and mean to repay it; and if
they say a word, they shall hear of the tomatoes all
over town. I've got the money and they can't help
themselves.”

So saying, she flirts a curl-paper out of her hair.
Without perceiving the insignificant loss, — for has she
not a far more precious bit of paper in her bosom? —
she quits the house, locks it after her, puts the key under
the door-step, and hurries home — unobserved?

Now, breathless, in her own room she stands; takes
off her things, and arranges her hair before the glass;
incorporates Mrs. Apjohn's note with the sum which
Abel had saved, inventing a score of arguments towards

self-justification; hides away the miserable jewels; and
then, forgetful of her engagement with Tasso, establishes
herself at the window to watch, through the curtains,
for Mrs. Apjohn's return.