146
SHIANA
Kate.—Which character, Abbie—for honesty or for witchcraft?
Abbie.—Well said, Kate. I think he saved both.
Nora.—I wonder, Peg, if there was any hope that the gentleman would come back and give real money to those people to whom he had given the base coin.
Peg.—I fear, Nora, that if he did, he would be set down by those same people as being quite as mad as they thought Sive was.
Abbie.—Oh, Peg, how quietly Nora pokes a bit of fun at us! "I wonder if there was any hope that he would come back," says she. As if she had the slightest doubt in her mind that there was no hope whatever of it!
Nora.—Oh, really and truly, Abbie, and as I hope no evil to my soul, I am in downright earnest. Here is the point that puzzles me. Michael Redmond made money, by witchcraft, out of little slate flags, and gave them to the landlady in order to get his hat from her. But he was not easy in his mind until he returned at the end of a week and brought her real money, and neither he nor anyone else saw anything extraordinary in that. But if that gentleman were to come back and give real money to the people to whom he had given the bad money, they would say he was as mad as they considered Sive to be. That is what puzzles me.
Peg.—Well, you see, Nora, there is this difference between the two cases. Michael Redmond was an honest man, whatever witchcraft he had, or had not. That "gentleman" was a thief, whatever gentility he had, or had not.
