“I think they are horrible,” said Tess. “Crushing! Killing!”
“That’s what they are meant to be!” he replied in a trade voice. “But you should read my hottest ones—them I kips for slums and seaports. They’d make ye wriggle! Not but what this is a very good tex for rural districts. … Ah—there’s a nice bit of blank wall up by that barn standing to waste. I must put one there—one that it will be good for dangerous young females like yerself to heed. Will ye wait, missy?”
“No,” said she; and taking her basket Tess trudged on. A little way forward she turned her head. The old gray wall began to advertise a similar fiery lettering to the first, with a strange and unwonted mien, as if distressed at duties it had never before been called upon to perform. It was with a sudden flush that she read and realized what was to be the inscription he was now halfway through—
Thou, shalt, not, commit—
Her cheerful friend saw her looking, stopped his brush, and shouted—