ch she had quite forgotten, came into her mind. There were
certain words that came into her mind the night before the last, which
were continually humming in her ears: I found that the words were, "Thou
shalt not steal".

On inquiring where she had first heard these words, I learned that she
had read them at school, in a book called the primer; to this school she
had been sent by her mother, who was a poor widow, who followed the trade
of apple-selling in the very spot where her daughter followed it now. It
seems that the mother was a very good kind of woman, but quite ignorant
of letters, the benefit of which she was willing to procure for her
child; and at the school the daughter learned to read, and subsequently
experienced the pleasure and benefit of letters, in being able to read
the book which she found in an obscure closet of her mother's house, and
which had been her principal companion and comfort for many years of her
life.

But, as I have said before, she was now dissatisfied with the book, and
with most other things in which she had taken pleasure; she dwelt much on
the words, "Thou shalt not steal"; she had never stolen things herself,
but then she had bought things which other people had stolen, and which
she knew had been stolen; and her dear son had been a thief, which he
perhaps would not have been but for the example which she set him in
buying things from characters, as she called them, who associated with
her.

On inquiring how she had become acquainted with these characters, I
learned that times had gone hard with her; that she had married, but her
husband had died after a long sickness, which had reduced them to great
distress; that her fruit trade was not a profitable one, and that she had
bought and sold things which had been stolen to support herself and her
son. That for a long time she supposed there was no harm in doing so, as
her book was full of entertaining tales of stealing; but she now thought
that the book was a bad book, and that learning to read was a bad thing;
her mother had never been able to read, but had died in peace, though
poor.

So here was a woman who attributed the vices and follies of her life to
being able to read; her mother, she said, who could not read, lived
respectably, and died in peace; and what was the essential difference
between the mother and daughter, save that the latter could read? But
for her literature she might in all probability have lived respec