The Integrity Test of 1876

How warm and cheerful the kitchen of the old Stedhurst farmhouse looked to Judith Black upon the dreary November evening when she first came there to live! Judith had been a dressmaker, but times were hard. Applicants were many, and the cup of starvation had been perilously close to her lips when she crept into the office where Edward Stedhurst saw her and offered her the housework. Judith stayed for a month, and then Mrs. Stedhurst engaged her for another. She was neat, quick to learn, and thoroughly trustworthy. One afternoon, Mr. Stedhurst brought down an armful of old coats and vests from the garret. 'Judith,' said he, 'these things are getting moth-eaten. They belonged to an old uncle who died years ago—a lonely old fellow who hoarded everything up. I want them cut into carpet rags.' As she worked, she sang to herself. Picking up an old waistcoat, she chipped off the buttons and mechanically turned the pockets inside out. There was a piece of folded brownish paper in one of them. To her surprise, she perceived that it was a twenty-pound note. In her first astonishment, she uttered a little cry. She was so poor—so pinched for money—and these Stedhursts were rich. They would never know. For a minute, the temptation wrestled with her nature. For a minute only; and then she rose up and went straight to the door of the study. 'Mr. Stedhurst,' said she, 'here is some money, a twenty-pound note. I have found it in the pockets of one of these old waistcoats.' 'And why didn't you keep it?' he asked. 'Did it not occur to you that I would never know?' 'It was not mine,' Judith answered. 'I put that money there,' said old Phineas Stedhurst. 'To test you. To make sure that the girl to whom my boy had given his heart was worthy of him.'