“Wait, Mary Louise! I want to give you forty dollars—in gold. You can give ten to Jane, as I promised her, but I think you deserve thirty. You’re a good, clever girl!”
Mary Louise shook her head.
“No, thank you, Miss Grant. What I did, I did because of my love and sympathy for Elsie. If you will treat her fairly, that is all the reward I want.”
The old lady gazed at the girl in amazement at her refusal. But she saw that she meant what she said; perhaps Mary Louise’s generosity put her to shame.
“I will, Mary Louise,” she promised solemnly. “I will indeed.”
So, well satisfied with the happy solution of the mystery at Dark Cedars, Mary Louise hurried back to tell Elsie Grant the good news about her new home and the four happy years at high school which were in store for her.
Transcriber’s Note
- Retained publication and copyright information from the printed exemplar (this book is public-domain in the U.S.).
- Obvious typographical errors were corrected without comment. Possibly intentional spelling variations were not changed.
- The table of characters was reformatted to accomodate variable-width devices.