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“Why, Alice!–you ain’t married, are you?” gasped John, to whom that was the only possible evil.

“No, John, and never shall be: a respectable man like you would never think of looking twice at a poor girl like me!”

“Let’s have one more look anyhow,” said John, drawing her hands from her face. “Tell me what’s the matter, and if there’s anything can be done to right you, I’ll work day and night to do it, Alice.”

“There’s nothing can be done, John,” replied Alice, and would again have floated out on the ocean of her misery, but in spite of wind and tide, that is sobs and tears, she held on by the shore at his entreaty, and told her tale, not even omitting the fact that when she went to the eldest of the cousins, inheriting through the misfortune of her and her brother so much more than their expected share, and “demeaned herself” to beg a little help for her brother, who was dying of consumption, he had all but ordered her out of the house, swearing he had nothing to do with her or her brother, and saying she ought to be ashamed to show her face.

“And that when we used to make mud pies together!” concluded Alice with indignation. “There, John! you have it all,” she added. “–And now?”

With the word she gave a deep, humbly questioning look into his honest eyes.

“Is that all, Alice?” he asked.

“Yes, John; ain’t it enough?” she returned.

“More’n enough,” answered John. “I swear to you, Alice, you’re worth to me ten times what you would ha’ been, even if you’d ha’ had me, with ten thousand pounds in your ridicule. Why, my woman, I never saw you look one ‘alf so ‘an’some as you do now!”

“But the disgrace of it, John!” said Alice, hanging her head, and so hiding the pleasure that would dawn through all the mist of her misery.

“Let your father and mother settle that betwixt ’em, Alice. ‘Tain’t none o’ my business. Please God, we’ll do different.–When shall it be, my girl?”

“When you like, John,” answered Alice, without raising her head, thoughtfully.

When she had withdrawn herself from the too rigorous embrace with which he received her consent, she remarked–

“I do believe, John, money ain’t a good thing! Sure as I live, with the very wind o’ that money, the devil entered into me. Didn’t you hate me, John? Speak the truth now.”

“No, Alice. I did cry a bit over you, though. You was possessed like.”

“I was possessed. I do believe if that money hadn’t been took from me, I’d never ha’ had you, John. Ain’t it awful to think on?”

“Well, no. O’ coorse! How could ye?” said Jephson–with reluctance.

“Now, John, don’t ye talk like that, for I won’t stand it. Don’t you go for to set me up again with excusin’ of me. I’m a nasty conceited cat, I am–and all for nothing but mean pride.”

“Mind ye, ye’re mine now, Alice; an’ what’s mine’s mine, an’ I won’t have it abused. I knows you twice the woman you was afore, and all the world couldn’t gi’ me such another Christmas-box–no, not if it was all gold watches and roast beef.”

When Mr. Greatorex returned to his wife’s room, and thought to find her asleep as he had left her, he was dismayed to hear sounds of soft weeping from the bed. Some tone or stray word, never intended to reach her ear, had been enough to reveal the truth concerning her baby.

“Hush! hush!” he said, with more love in his heart than had moved there for many months, and therefore more in his tone than she had heard for as many;–“if you cry you will be ill. Hush, my dear!”

In a moment, ere he could prevent her, she had flung her arms around his neck as he stooped over her.

“Husband! husband!” she cried, “is it my fault?”

“You behaved perfectly,” he returned. “No woman could have been braver.”