The Parent's Assistant; Or, Stories for ChildrenEdgeworth, Maria
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The Parent's Assistant; Or, Stories for Children
Edgeworth, Maria
Children's stories; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction
To comprehend why Edmund is joyful, our readers must be informed of
certain things which happened after Isabella and Caroline went to Dublin.
One morning they went with their father and mother to see the magnificent
library of a nobleman, who took generous and polite pleasure in thus
sharing the advantages of his wealth and station with all who had any
pretensions to science or literature. Knowing that the gentleman who was
now come to see his library was skilled in antiquities, the nobleman
opened a drawer of medals, to ask his opinion concerning the age of some
coins, which he had lately purchased at a high price. They were the very
same which the orphans had found at Rossmore Castle. Isabella and
Caroline knew them again instantly; and as the cross which Isabella had
made on each of them was still visible through a magnifying glass, there
could be no possibility of doubt.
The nobleman, who was much interested both by the story of these orphans,
and the manner in which it was told to him, sent immediately for the
person from whom he had purchased the coins. He was a Jew broker. At
first he refused to tell them from whom he got them, because he had
bought them, he said, under a promise of secrecy. Being further pressed,
he acknowledged that it was made a condition in his bargain that he
should not sell them to anyone in Ireland, but that he had been tempted
by the high price the present noble possessor had offered.
At last, when the Jew was informed that the coins were stolen, and that
he would be proceeded against as a receiver of stolen goods, if he did
not confess the whole truth, he declared that he had purchased them from
a gentleman, whom he had never seen before or since; but he added, that
he could swear to his person, if he saw him again.
Now, Mr. Hopkins, the agent, was at this time in Dublin, and Caroline’s
father posted the Jew, the next day, in the back-parlour of a banker’s
house, with whom Mr. Hopkins had, on this day, appointed to settle some
accounts. Mr. Hopkins came—the Jew knew him—swore that he was the man
who had sold the coins to him; and thus the guilt of the agent and the
innocence of the orphans were completely proved.
A full account of all that happened was sent to England to Mr. Harvey,
their landlord, and a few posts afterwards there came a letter from him,
containing a dismissal of the dishonest agent, and a reward for the
honest and industrious orphans. Mr. Harvey desired that Mary and her
sisters might have the slated house, rent free, from this time forward,
under the care of ladies Isabella and Caroline, as long as Mary or her
sisters should carry on in it any useful business. This was the joyful
news which Edmund had to tell his sisters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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