"The last time I was honoured with a visit from Betty Fye, she meant to favour me with a very large order upon my goods and chattels. "'Well, Mrs Fye, what do you want to-day?' "'So many things, that I scarce know where to begin. Ah, what a thing it is to be poor! First, I want you to lend me ten pounds of flour to make some Johnie cakes.' "'I thought they were made of Indian meal?' "'Yes, yes, when you've got the meal. I'm out of it, and this is a new fixing of my own invention. Lend me the flour, woman, and I'll bring you one of the cakes to taste.' "This was said very coaxingly. "'Oh, pray don't trouble yourself. What next?' I was anxious to see how far her impudence would go, and determined to affront her, if possible. "'I want you to lend me a gown and a pair of stockings. I have to go to Oswego, to see my husband's sister, and I'd like to look decent.' "'Mrs Fye, I never lend my clothes to any one. If I lent them to you, I should never wear them again.' "'So much the better for me,' (with a knowing grin.) 'I guess if you won't lend me the gown, you will let me have some black slack to quilt a stuff petticoat, a quarter of a pound of tea and some sugar; and I will bring them back as soon as I can.' "'I wonder when that will be. You owe me so many things that it will cost you more than you imagine to repay me.' "'Since you're not going to mention what's past, I can't owe you much. But I will let you off the tea and the sugar, if you will lend me a five-dollar bill.'" This was too much for even Mrs Moodie's patience. She read the incorrigible Betty a sharp lecture upon her system of robbing under colour of borrowing, and concluded by saying she well knew that all the things she had _lent_ her would be a debt owing to the day of judgment. "'S'pose they are,' quoth Betty, not in the least abashed at my lecture on honesty, 'you know what the Scripture saith, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."' "'Ay, there is an answer to that in the same book, which doubtless you may have heard,' said I, disgusted with her hypocrisy, 'The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.' "Never shall I forget the furious passion into which this too apt quotation threw my unprincipled applicant. She lifted up her voice and cursed me, using some of the big oaths temporarily discarded for _conscience'_ sake. And so she left me, and I never looked upon her face again."