Some of the pictures had been painted with so doubtful a touch, and in
colors so faint and pale, that the subjects could barely be conjectured.
A dull, semitransparent mist had been thrown over the surface of the
canvas, into which the figures seemed to vanish, while the eye sought
most earnestly to fix them. But, in every scene, however dubiously
portrayed, Mr. Smith was invariably haunted by his own lineaments, at
various ages, as in a dusty mirror. After poring several minutes over
one of these blurred and almost indistinguishable pictures, he began to
see that the painter had intended to represent him, now in the decline of
life, as stripping the clothes from the backs of three half-starved
children. "Really, this puzzles me!" quoth Mr. Smith, with the irony of
conscious rectitude. "Asking pardon of the painter, I pronounce him a
fool, as well as a scandalous knave. A man of my standing in the world,
to be robbing little children of their clothes! Ridiculous!" But while
he spoke, Memory had searched her fatal volume, and found a page, which,
with her sad, calm voice, she poured into his ear. It was not altogether
inapplicable to the misty scene. It told how Mr. Smith had been
grievously tempted, by many devilish sophistries, on the ground of a
legal quibble, to commence a lawsuit against three orphan children, joint
heirs to a considerable estate. Fortunately, before he was quite
decided, his claims had turned out nearly as devoid of law as justice.
As Memory ceased to read, Conscience again thrust aside her mantle, and
would have struck her victim with the envenomed dagger, only that he
struggled, and clasped his hands before his heart. Even then, however,
he sustained an ugly gash.

Why should we follow Fancy through the whole series of those awful
pictures? Painted by an artist of wondrous power, and terrible
acquaintance with the secret soul, they embodied the ghosts of all the
never perpetrated sins that had glided through the lifetime of Mr. Smith.