"It was a hard blow to me, I assure you. But tell me, have you found the missing money?" asked Fred eagerly.
"Yes. It was not lost; and the amount—eighteen dollars—was right. The error was in making change. It was my own mistake. An eccentric old fellow, a farmer up in Martintown, had the money—the very same twenty dollar bill. He said he gave me a five dollar bill and I handed back the twenty dollar bill in change."
"Farmers usually count their change very carefully."
"Yes, and it seems he counted this after he got home. He said he put the bill by itself in his wallet to keep until he had occasion to come this way again."
"When did you learn about it?"
"Two or three weeks ago."
"And you have known it all this time and said nothing about it?"
"Yes, Fred. Almost every day I have decided to send for you and explain all as I am doing now, but I dreaded meeting you and kept putting it off from day to day. I felt so guilty over my treatment of you, and so humiliated when I found the error was my own, that I had not the courage to tell you about it. Yet I knew all the time that I was adding more and more to the wrong I had done you."
"I can imagine how you feel about it," said Fred, "and your apology makes it all right. If the old farmer had returned the money earlier, much of this trouble might have been saved. He ought to have written you about it at any rate. It was fortunate he was an honest man; otherwise we should never have solved the mystery, and the stain would have clung to me always."
"Yes, Fred, I am afraid it would. But all suspicion is removed from you now. This shows of what vital importance honesty, even in small matters, may prove to an individual."