LITTLE RIE
desolate child wandering up and down, with no one to take her by the hand, or lead her towards heaven!
And yet the mistress did not reproach herself. She had done well to take the child; few would have done as much; and she had done well to punish her; it was just and right that she should suffer for her faults.
But weeks after, when poor Sally's simple heart was getting used to miss the child, the mistress came into the kitchen and took down a little covered jar full of caraway seeds, from a shelf over the dresser; she looked in, and a mist seemed to rise and shut out the sunshine without and within, for there lay the paper of raisins; in an instant she knew it again, and knew that in her hurry and confusion, she herself must have thrown it in. Yes, that little jar had been standing beside her. Then into it she must have pushed or dropped the raisins, and afterwards, with her own hand, she must have set the jar upon the shelf above, to be out of her way.
Miserable, aching pain! How hard it was to have it so often in her heart, and by slow degrees to grow into the knowledge, that even a just punishment may become unjust, unless it is administered in the spirit of love! But hers had not been a just punishment. Alas! she had not possessed herself of any certain knowledge of the fault; she, herself, had outraged that sense of truth and justice which she had been at so much pains to implant; and now there was no means of making restitution.
But let us not judge her; for in this world of uncertain knowledge and concealed motives, how few of
