She took it mechanically, and wended her way to her desolate home. He
was the only one, with the exception of Old Becca, who entered with
Bessy.

He looked around the forlorn room, gazing now here, now there, to hide
his emotion. He seemed about to speak when a knock at the door
interrupted him.

Becca opened it, and returned with a letter stating that the bearer
required an answer. The stranger took it with an air of authority and
broke the seal; as he did so, a five pound note fluttered to the ground.
While he read the letter his eyes flashed with a strange fire, and his
quivering nostril showed the strength of the passion raging within.

Turning to the boy, he thrust the letter into his hand, and bade him
pick up the note. "Take this answer to your master, boy," he said; "we
return the letter and his money with disdain, and tell him that Bessy
Green is not so desolate and friendless that she needs accept five
pounds as the price of two innocent lives. The debt is one that no man
can cancel: but the reckoning day is sure to come! tell him that, boy,
from the brother of Bessy Green, from the uncle of Tom and Susy."

The boy hurried away with the message; and Bessy, who had been aroused
by the stranger's vehemence, at the word "brother," threw herself upon
his neck, crying--"It is George!" What follows is quickly told: Bessy's
grief was deep, and it took long long months before she was fitted to
engage in the ordinary occupations of life; but change of scene and
cheerful company, together with the daily expanding beauties of her only
child, partially healed her lacerated heart. Her generous brother, who
had returned from a distant land,--where fortune had smiled upon his