will not put away the help which
God provides us at your friendly hands: only this, kind brother--let me
call you brother--keep the purse; if my father pines for want of work,
and the babes at home lack food, pardon my boldness if I take the help
you offer. Meanwhile, God in heaven bless you, Jonathan, as He will!"

And she turned to go away.

"Won't you take a keepsake, Grace--one little token? I wish I had any
thing here but money to give you for my sake."

"It would even be ungenerous in me to refuse you, brother; one little
piece will do."

Jonathan fumbled up something in a crumpled piece of paper, and said
sobbingly--"Let it be this new half-crown, Grace: I won't say, keep it
always; only when you want to use that and more, I humbly ask you'll
please come to me."

Now a more delicate, a more unselfish act, was never done by man: along
with the half-crown he had packed up two sovereigns! and thereby not
only escaped thanks, concealed his own beneficence, and robbed his purse
of half its little store; but actually he was, by doing so, depriving
himself for a month, or maybe more, of a visit from Grace Acton. Had it
been only half-a-crown, and want had pinched the family (neither Grace
nor Jonathan could guess of Ben Burke's bounty, and for all they knew
Roger had not enough for the morrow's meals)--had poverty come in like
an armed man, and stood upon their threshold a grim sentinel--doubtless
she must have run to him within a day or two. How sweet would it have
been to have kept her coming day by day, and to a commoner affection how
excusable! but still how selfish, how unlike the liberal and honourable
feeling that filled the manly heart of Jonathan Floyd! It was a noble
act, and worthy of a long parenthesis.

If Grace Acton had looked back as she hurried down the avenue, she would
have seen poor Jonathan still watching her with all his eyes till she
was out of sight. Perhaps, though, she might have guessed it--there is a
sympathy in these things, the true animal magnetism--and I dare say that
was the very reason why she did not once turn her head.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE DISCOVERY.

Roger Acton had not slept well; had not slept at all till
nearly break of day, except in the feverish fashion of half dream half
revery. There were thick-coming fancies all night long about what Ben
had said and done: and more than once Roger had thought of the
expediency of getting up, to seek without delay the realiz