honest hitherto, suddenly changed into a thief!

For, in the course of a certain friendly gossip's narrative, it came out
that that night the banker had been using the kitchen fire for the
destruction of an accumulation of bank-notes, the common currency of
Scotland, which had been judged altogether too dirty, or too much
dilapidated, to be reissued. The knowledge of this fact was the slam of
the closing door, whereby Annie found her soul shut out to wander in a
night of dismay. The woman who told the fact saw nothing of consequence
in it; Mrs. Melville, to whom she was telling it, saw nothing but
perhaps a lesson on the duty of having chimneys regularly swept, because
of the danger to neighboring thatch. But had not Annie been seated in
the shadow, her ghastly countenance would, even to the most casual
glance, have betrayed a certain guilty horror, for now she _knew_
that she had found and given away what she ought at once to have handed
back to its rightful owner. It was true he did not even know that he had
lost it, and could have no suspicion that she had found it; but what
difference did or could that make? It was true also that she had neither
taken nor bestowed it to her own advantage; but again, what difference
could that make in her duty to restore it? Did she not well remember how
eloquently and precisely Mr. Kennedy had, the very last Sunday,
expounded the passage, "Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor."
Right was right, whatever soft-hearted people might say or think. Anyone
might give what was his own, but who could be right in giving away what
was another's? It was time she had done it without thinking; but she had
known, or might have known, well enough that to whomsoever it might
belong, it was not hers. And now what possibility was there of setting
right what she had set wrong? It was just possible a day might come when
she should be able to restore what she had unjustly taken, but at the
present moment it was as impossible for her to lay her hand upon a