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She ceased, but still held out the note to him.

Mr. Macintosh stood again silent, and made no movement toward taking it.

“Please, sir, take the money, and forgive me,” pleaded Annie. “And please, sir, please do not say anything about it to anybody. Even my mother does not know.”

“Now there you did wrong. You ought to have told your mother.”

“I see that now, sir; but I was so glad to be able to help the poor creatures that I did not think of it till afterwards.”

“I dare say your mother would have been glad of the money herself; I understand she was not left very well off.”

“At that time I did not know she was so poor. But now that my mistress has paid me such good wages, I am going to take her every penny of them this very afternoon.”

“And then you will tell her, will you not?”

“I shall not mind telling her when you have taken it back. I was afraid to tell her before! It was to pay you back that I asked Mrs. Macintosh to take me for parlor-maid.”

“Then you were not in service before?”

“No, sir. You see, my mother thought I could earn my bread in a way we should both like better.”

“So now you will give up service and go back to her?”

“I am not sure, sir. It would be long, I fear, before the school would pay me as well. You see, I have my food here too. And everything tells. Please, sir, take the pound.”

“My dear girl,” said her master, “I could not think of depriving you of what you have so well earned. It is more than enough to me that you want to repay it. I positively cannot take it.”

“Indeed, I do want to repay it, sir,” rejoined Annie. “It’s anything but willing I shall be not to repay it. Indeed, there is no other way to get my soul free.”

Here it seems time I should mention that Hector, weary of waiting Annie’s return, had left the dining room to look for her; and running up the stair, not without the dread of hearing his mother’s foot behind him, had slid softly into his father’s room, to find Annie on her knees before him, and hear enough to understand her story before either his father or she was aware of his presence.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but indeed you must take it,” urged Annie. “Surely you would not be so cruel to a poor girl who prays you to take the guilt off her back. Don’t you see, sir, I never can look my father in the face till I have paid the money back!”

Here his father caught sight of Hector, and, perceiving that Annie had not yet seen him, and possibly glad of a witness, put up his hand to him to keep still. “Where is your father, then?” he asked Annie.

“In heaven somewhere,” she answered, “waiting for my mother and me. Oh, father!” she broke out, “if only you had been alive you would soon have got me out of my shame and misery! But, thank God! it will soon be over now; my master cannot refuse to set me free.”

“Certainly I will set you free,” said Mr. Macintosh, a good deal touched. “With all my heart I forgive you the–the–the debt, and I thank you for bringing me to know the honestest girl–I mean, the most honorable girl I have ever yet had the pleasure to meet.”

Hector had been listening, hardly able to contain his delight, and at these last words of his father, like the blundering idiot he was, he rushed forward, and, clasping Annie to his heart, cried out:

“Thank God, Annie, my father at least knows what you are!”

He met with a rough and astounding check. Far too startled to see who it was that thus embraced her, and unprepared to receive such a salutation, least of all from one she had hitherto regarded as the very prince of gentleness and courtesy, she met it with a sound, ringing box on the ear, which literally staggered Hector, and sent his father into a second peal of laughter, this time as loud as it was merry, and the next moment swelled in volume by that of Hector himself.