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    P&rcas heard the little tale-bearer tell her story , —tell it amid attention and encouragement . First one , and then another , of the . family sported some vuj . gar wit at the expense of Dorcas ; her peculiarities of person—of manner—of speaking , were sneered

    at > on all sides rash , rude , illiberal opinions were freely vented ; Dorcas was declared dull , stupid , lazy , ugly . Thus wantonly were the accusing stones flung about , and in the very presence of the volume which prohibits such unwarrantable censure ; for Abel Barton and his family were regular rehearsers of the Bible , and regular appearers at church .

    When the conversation closed , Dorcas stole back to the kitchen , a creature strangely changed from what she had hitherto been * Reproach and insult she had continually met , but there was in general some kind of ground , some pretext for them ; they met her openly , and after some fashion or other she rebutted them - But the sarcasms to which she had just listened had been , in the

    instance of many of the speakers , unprovoked , and those sarcasms were calculated to wound her self-love in the highest degree . A few hours after this scene night closed in , and Dorcas njounted to her garret . That place which had hitherto been the theatre of her prayers to heaven , and her tears for home , what thoughts and feelings did it witness now ? Heart-burning rage and wishes for revenge .

    The wind of a December night was howling down the grateless fire-place , and waved the ragged curtain hung before the casement . Dorcas seated herself on the foot of her stump bedstead , and placed her candlestick , with its glimmering bit of ru 3 h , upon an old chair , the only other article of furniture in the room . She

    did not shiver , as she was wont , with cold and discomfort ; her mind was too busy to heed her body . The smart of her insulted feelings subsided in favour of the calmer power of thought ; thoiignt as to how those feelings might be satisfied—their revenge accomplished . Every kindly affection , every happy emotion , had startea back into the far recesses of her spirit , which had now

    been for some time under a course of discipline that was gradually imposing on it a colder character than it had yet known . To avoid details , which only serve as examples for error too easily learned without , it is enough to say that Dorcaa became a p ilferer . Those who had ridiculed , despised ,. insulted her * she robbed . There appeared to her a principle of equity in this act .

    Thtte she did jiot reason ; thus it mi g ht rather be said she felt . Perhaps some such feeling has stiliea the conscience of many a criininal . The high morality which teacher us to return good for evicts never learned in the school of ignorance and oppression . W ^ ht o ^ ltnpwledge , and an exoess of the selfish feelings which h ^ d b een sq strx > tig } y e ^ cite c } , rendered D ^ rc a * incapable of cal - culling Tempte cpnse ^ uepcea , $ hp iW , ^ ei ? , *? yg ?} gjR in robbery , bat Tier j ^ u ^ liipent in the dread q {{ letftction ,, which soon began

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    400 Skefche * qf Dpnit ^ ic £ ifrf

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1835, page 400, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2646/page/36/