Dr. Hammond was a physician in great practice in the West of England. He resided in a small market-town and his family consisted of one son, named Charles, and two daughters, Louisa and Sophy.

Sophy possessed many amiable qualities, and did not want for sense, but every better feeling was lost in her extreme inquisitiveness. Her faculties were all occupied in peeping and prying about, and, provided she could gratify her own curiosity, she never cared how much vexation she caused to others.

This propensity began when she was so very young that it had become a habit before her parents perceived it. She was a very little creature when she was once nearly squeezed to death between two double doors as she was peeping through the keyhole of one of them to see who was in the drawing-room; and another time she was locked up for several hours in a closet in which she had hid herself for the purpose of overhearing what her mother was saying to one of the servants.

When Sophy was eleven and her sister about sixteen years old their mother died. Louisa was placed at the head of her father’s house, and the superintendence of Sophy’s education necessarily devolved on her. The care of such a family was a great charge for a young person of Miss Hammond’s age, and more especially as her father was obliged to be so much from home that she could not always have his counsel and advice even when she most needed it. By this means she fell into an injudicious mode of treating her sister.

If Louisa received a note she carefully locked it up, and never spoke of its contents before Sophy. If a message was brought to her she always went out of the room to receive it, and never suffered the servant to speak in her sister’s hearing. When any visitors came Louisa commonly sent Sophy out of the room, or if they were intimate friends she would converse with them in whispers; in short, it was her chief study that everything which passed in the family should be a secret from Sophy. Alas! this procedure, instead of repressing Sophy’s curiosity, only made it the more keen; her eyes and ears were always on the alert, and what she could not see, hear, or thoroughly comprehend she made out by guesses.

The worst consequence of Louisa’s conduct was that as Sophy had no friend and companion in her sister, who treated her with such constant suspicion and reserve, she necessarily was induced to find a friend and companion among the servants, and she selected the housemaid Sally, a good-natured, well-intentioned girl, but silly and ignorant and inquisitive like herself, and it may be easily supposed how much mischief these two foolish creatures occasioned, not only in the family, but also among their neighbors.

It happened soon after, that for an offence which was the cause of very great vexation to her brother, and was the occasion of his being for a time deprived of the friendship of Sir Henry and Lady Askham, two of Dr. Hammond’s nearest and most intimate neighbors, her father ordered Sophy, as a still further punishment, to be locked up in her own room till the Sunday following. This was on Friday, and Sophy had two days of solitude and imprisonment before her. The first day she passed very dismally, but yet not unprofitably, for she felt truly ashamed and sorry for her fault, and made many good resolutions of endeavoring to cure herself of her mischievous propensity. The second day she began to be somewhat more composed, and by degrees she was able to amuse herself with watching the people in the street, which was overlooked by the windows of her apartment, and she began, almost unconsciously to herself, to indulge in her old habit of trying to find out what everybody was doing, and in guessing where they were going.

She had not long been engaged in watching her neighbors before her curiosity was excited by the appearance of a servant on horseback, who rode up to the door, and, after giving a little three-cornered note to Dr. Hammond’s footman, rode off. The servant she knew to be Mrs. Arden’s, an intimate friend of her father, and the note she conjectured was an invitation to dinner, and the guessing what day the invitation was for, and who were to be the company, and whether she was included in the invitation, was occupying her busy fancy, when she saw her sister going out of the house with the three-cornered note in her hand, and cross the street to Mr. McNeal’s stocking shop, which was opposite. Almost immediately afterwards Mr. McNeal’s shopman came out of the shop, and, running down the street, was presently out of sight, but soon returned with Mr. McNeal himself. She saw Louisa reading the note to Mr. McNeal, and in a few minutes afterwards return home. Here was a matter of wonder and conjecture. Sophy forgot all her good resolutions, and absolutely wearied herself with her useless curiosity.

At length the term of her imprisonment was over, and Sophy was restored to the society of her family. At first she kept a tolerable guard over herself. Once she saw her father and sister whispering, and did not, though she longed much to do it, hold her breath that she might hear what they were saying. Another time she passed Charles’s door when it was ajar and the little study open, and she had so much self-command that she passed by without peeping in, and she began to think she was cured of her faults. But in reality this was far from being the case, and whenever she recollected Mrs. Arden’s mysterious note she felt her inquisitive propensities as strong as ever. Her eyes and ears were always on the alert, in hopes of obtaining some clue to the knowledge she coveted, and if Mrs, Arden’s or Mr. McNeal’s names were mentioned she listened with trembling anxiety in the hope of hearing some allusion to the note.

At last, when she had almost given up the matter in despair, an unlooked-for chance put her in possession of a fragment of this very note to which she attached so much importance.

One day Louisa wanted to wind a skein of silk, and in looking for a piece of paper to wind it upon she opened her writing-box, and took out Mrs. Arden’s note. Sophy knew it again in an instant from its three-cornered shape. She saw her sister tear the note in two, throw one-half under the grate, and fold the other part up to wind her silk upon. Sophy kept her eye upon the paper that lay under the grate in the greatest anxiety, lest a coal should drop upon it and destroy it, when it seemed almost within her grasp. Louisa was called out of the room, and Sophy, overpowered by the greatness of the temptation, forgot all the good resolutions she had so lately made, and at the risk of setting fire to her sleeve, snatched the paper from among the ashes, and concealed it in her pocket. She then flew to her own room to examine it at her ease. The note had been torn the lengthway of the paper, and that part of it of which Sophy had possessed herself contained the first half of each line of the note. Bolting her door for fear of interruption, she read, with trembling impatience, as follows:

Will you
be kind enough to go to
Mr. McNeal, and tell him
he has made a great mistake
the last stockings he sent;
charging them as silk) he has cheated
of several pounds. I am sorry to say
that he has behaved very ill
And Mr. Arden tells me that
it must end in his being hanged
I am exceedingly grieved
but fear this will be the end

When Sophy had read these broken sentences she fancied that she fully comprehended the purport of the whole note, and she now saw the reason of her sister’s hastening to Mr. McNeal’s immediately on the receipt of the note, and of the hurry in which he had been summoned back to his shop. It appeared very clear to her that he had defrauded Mrs. Arden of a considerable sum of money, and that he was no longer that honest tradesman he had been supposed. The weight of this important discovery quite overburdened her, and, forgetful of her past punishment, and regardless of future consequences, she imparted the surprising secret to Sally. Sally was not one who could keep such a piece of news to herself; it was therefore soon circulated through half the town that Mr. McNeal had defrauded Mrs. Arden, and that Mr. Arden declared he would have him hanged for it. Several persons in consequence avoided Mr. McNeal’s shop, who saw his customers forsaking him without being able to know why they did so. Thus the conduct of this inconsiderate girl took away the good name of an honest tradesman, on no better foundation than her own idle conjectures, drawn from the torn fragments of a letter.

Mr. McNeal at length became informed of the injurious report that was circulated about him. He immediately went to Mrs. Arden to tell her of the report, and to ask her if any inadvertency of his own in regard to her dealings at his shop occasioned her speaking so disadvantageously of him. Mrs. Arden was much astonished at what he told her, as she might well be, and assured him that she had never either spoken of him or thought of him but as thoroughly an honorable and honest tradesman. Mrs. Arden was exceedingly hurt that her name should be attached to such a cruel calumny, and, on consulting with Sir Henry Askham, it was agreed that he and Mrs. Arden should make it their business to trace it back to its authors. They found no real difficulty in tracing it back to Sally, Dr. Hammond’s servant. She was accordingly sent for to Mr. McNeal’s, where Sir Henry Askham and Mr. Arden, with some other gentlemen, were assembled on this charitable investigation. Sally, on being questioned who had told her of the report, replied, without hesitation, that she had been told by Miss Sophy, who had seen all the particulars in Mrs. Arden’s handwriting.

Mr. Arden was greatly astonished at hearing this assertion, and felt confident that the whole must have originated from some strange blunder. He and the other gentlemen immediately proceeded to Dr. Hammond’s, and having explained their business to him, desired to see Sophy. She, on being asked, confirmed what Sally had said, adding that to satisfy them she could show them Mrs. Arden’s own words, and she accordingly produced the fragment of the note. Miss Hammond, the instant she saw the paper recollected it again, and winding off the silk from the other half of Mrs. Arden’s note, presented it to Mr. Arden, who, laying the two pieces of paper together read as follows:

“MY DEAR MISS HAMMOND, Will you as soon as you receive this be kind enough to go to your opposite neighbor, Mr. McNeal, and tell him I find by looking at his bill he has made a great mistake as to the price of the last stockings he sent; and it seems to me (by not charging them as silk) he has cheated himself, as he’ll see, of several pounds. I am sorry to say of our new dog, that he has behaved very ill and worried two sheep, and Mr. Arden tells me he very much fears it must end in his being hanged or he’ll kill all the flock. I am exceedingly grieved, for he is a noble animal, but fear this will be the end of my poor dog.

“I am, dear Louisa, yours truly

“MARY ARDEN.”

Thus by the fortunate preservation of the last half of the note the whole affair was cleared up, Mrs. Arden’s character vindicated from the charge of being a defamer, and Mr. McNeal from all suspicion of dishonesty. And all their friends were pleased and satisfied. But how did Sophy feel? She did feel at last both remorse and humiliation. She had no one to blame but herself; she had no one to take her part, for even her father and her brother considered it due to public justice that she should make a public acknowledgment of her fault to Mr. McNeal, and to ask his pardon.