ung days, but I know I
never took a pin that didn't belong to me, none of me children or
people neither; and as for Jim Clay, he wouldn't think of touchin' a
thing--he was too much the other way to get on in the world. An' it
ain't any fault of my rarin' that me grandson is hounded down a
vagabond," said the old lady in a tragic manner.

Seeing her fierce agitation, the lad's pursuer was alarmed and sought
to pacify her by further remarking--

"He ain't done nothink out of the way, an' I admit the oranges was a
great temptation."

The old lady snorted, and the colour of her face heralded something
verging on an apoplectic seizure.

"Temptation! If people was only honest and decent by keepin' from the
things that ain't any temptation, we'd be all fit for jail or a
asylum. Pretty thing, if he's only to leave alone that which ain't any
temptation to him! You could put other people's things before me, I
wouldn't take 'em, not if me tongue was hanging out a yard for 'em.
That's the kind of honesty that I've always practised to me neighbours
and rared into any one under me, and that's the only kind of honesty
that is honesty at all," she splendidly finished. "An' I'm very
thankful to you for informin' me. I wish you had caught him an'
skelped the hide off of him. It's what I'll do meself soon as I sift
the matter."

The old man bade good-night and departed with his stick.

"He's always sneakin' about the lanes, an' only poked his tongue out
at me w'en I wanted to know where he was," maliciously said Uncle Jake
in reference to his grand-nephew.

"Mean old hide, always likes to sit on any one when they're down,"
whispered Dawn and Carry to each other. "A pity Andrew hadn't two
tongues to stick out at him."

Miss Flipp was too dull to be aroused by even this disturbance. The
only time she showed any feeling was when her "uncle" paid her
clandestine visits. Her life seemed to be in a terrible tangle--more
than that, in a syrtis,--but I did not take a hand in further crushing
her. She had been kind to me during my indisposition, and except in
extreme cases, "live and let live" was an axiom I had learned to
carefully regard. Knowledge of the slight chance of circumstances or
opportunity--which too frequently is the only difference between a
good person and a bad one, success and failure--reminds one to be very
lenient regarding human frailty.

"Now, me young shaver! I'll deal with you," said grandma, turning to
Andrew,