I Helped a Lass Who'd Helped Herself

Luky;
I HAD SUCH A MISERABLE EXPERIENCE: there was a little shop in one of our suburbs, a cosy little place. Everything was spotless and shiny, and the shelves were crammed with such homely items as English jams and packaged cakes. I could spend hours in a place like that.
Unfortunately, when I got to the till, a young girl was caught pinching a packet of sweets.
I was scared of the consequences for her, so I offered to pay. The cashier accepted the payment, but said that the child's mother had to be told.

I did, too
I could go along with that, but it did cast a gloom over that cosy little shop.
I blush to remember all the sweets I pinched in my life. Fortunately for me, the only shop I pinched them from happened to belong to my parents.
In view of this past of mine, I've ended up surprisingly honest. I've managed to keep to the straight and narrow.
Only once in my adult years have I been seriously tempted to steal something.

Faded glory
We were living in the seaside resort where my husband was born and brought up. A house was up for sale in the middle of town, and my husband, his brother and his sister wanted to go and look at it; so we all trooped up to the estate agent for the key and invaded the house.
What a sorry sight met our eyes. Dry rot had set in, and though my sister-in-law who wore size 12 dresses scaled those staircases like a gazelle, the steps creaked so alarmingly under my more solid weight that I bade the others godspeed and remained on the landing of the first floor.

Threadbare
From the landing I looked into the parlour, a picture of past grandeur. The brocade curtains which still hung there were so threadbare that they would have looked at home only in Miss Havisham's boudoir. Two easy chairs were covered with holes - can a chair be covered or filled with holes? Perhaps not, but these certainly looked at though they were.
And yet the whole place looked as though people had once been very happy there.
"Was there ever a sweeter colleen in the dance than Eily More,/ or a prouder lad than Thady as he boldly took the floor?"

Sudden treasure
Beside me on the landing was a lofty built-in dresser, its empty shelves visible through big glass doors. Idly I opened a drawer, expecting it to be empty, but in it were two perfectly preserved leather covered photo albums, clearly dating from another epoch.
What a find! Breathlessly I paged through the album, admiring pages of exquisite photographs of family groups dressed in the fashion of the very wealthy of the late nineteenth century.

Friendly house
You don't often see it in real life, but each one of those men, women, boys and girls looked beautiful, perfect, glowing with health and life. Their exquisite clothes caught my fancy and I began picking out Eily More and Thady, whose wedding photograph appeared near the end of the second album, after they had been shyly edging more and more closely together at picnics, dances and family entertainments.
So these were the people who had lived in this gaunt yet friendly house. No wonder it still retained its pleasant atmosphere.

Seemed doomed
I was carrying a bag, a shopping bag. Should I quickly put these albums into it? Who'd miss them? They had clearly been overlooked by the present owner of the house and were going to be demolished when the house was. It did not need an expert to tell me that even the low asking price of the house would not cover the rebuilding that would be needed.
On the other hand, I could ask the landlord if I might keep the albums. But perhaps it would be better not to; ever since we'd landed in his country my husband had been blushing for me, mutely apologising for my many clangers.

Moment of decision
I heard voices coming closer; the other members of my party were returning. Sighing, I returned my albums (for somehow they felt as though they were mine) back to their drawer. With the others I made my hazardous way downstairs, walking as closely to the bannisters as possible, since the stairs appeared more sturdy there.
For many years after I was torn between two emotions, gratitude that I hadn't given in to temptation and sorrow to think of the fate of my albums.
But now I'm please I left them there, because however could I have explained my possession of them to the children?