reason above reasoning--and without her own agency, as it seemed (for
she never felt her feet to move) she found herself transported back to
the individual desk she had just quitted, and her hand in the old hand
of Ravenscroft, who in silence took back the refunded treasure, and
who had been sitting (good man) insensible to the lapse of minutes,
which to her were anxious ages; and from that moment a deep peace fell
upon her heart, and she knew the quality of honesty.

A year or two's unrepining application to her profession brightened
up the feet, and the prospects, of her little sisters, set the whole
family upon their legs again, and released her from the difficulty of
discussing moral dogmas upon a landing-place.

I have heard her say, that it was a surprise, not much short of
mortification to her, to see the coolness with which the old man
pocketed the difference, which had caused her such mortal throes.

This anecdote of herself I had in the year 1800, from the mouth of
the late Mrs. Crawford,[1] then sixty-seven years of age (she died
soon after); and to her struggles upon this childish occasion I have
sometimes ventured to think her indebted for that power of rending
the heart in the representation of conflicting emotions, for which in
after years she was considered as little inferior (if at all so in the
part of Lady Randolph) even to Mrs. Siddons.

[Footnote 1: The maiden name of this lady was Street, which she
changed, by successive marriages, for those of Dancer, Barry, and
Crawford. She was Mrs. Crawford, and a third time a widow, when I
knew her.]