th the
old apple-woman: she had just returned from the other side of the bridge,
to her place in the booth where I had originally found her. This she had
done after repeated conversations with me; "she liked the old place
best," she said, which she would never have left but for the terror which
she experienced when the boys ran away with her book. So I sat with her
at the old spot, one afternoon past mid-winter, reading the book, of
which I had by this time come to the last pages. I had observed that the
old woman for some time past had shown much less anxiety about the book
than she had been in the habit of doing. I was, however, not quite
prepared for her offering to make me a present of it, which she did that
afternoon; when, having finished it, I returned it to her, with many
thanks for the pleasure and instruction I had derived from its perusal.
"You may keep it, dear," said the old woman, with a sigh; "you may carry
it to your lodging, and keep it for your own."

Looking at the old woman with surprise, I exclaimed, "Is it possible that
you are willing to part with the book which has been your source of
comfort so long?"

Whereupon the old woman entered into a long history, from which I
gathered that the book had become distasteful to her; she hardly ever
opened it of late, she said, or if she did, it was only to shut it again;
also, that other things which she had been fond of, though of a widely
different kind, were now distasteful to her. Porter and beef-steaks were
no longer grateful to her palate, her present diet chiefly consisting of
tea, and bread and butter.

"Ah," said I, "you have been ill, and when people are ill, they seldom
like the things which give them pleasure when they are in health." I
learned, moreover, that she slept little at night, and had all kinds of
strange thoughts; that as she lay awake many things connected with her
youth, which 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