"It won't do to stop; Aunt Nancy'll be worryin' about me, an', besides, we've got to send a letter to Louis' mother right away."
Tom insisted that after the service he had rendered it would be nothing more than a friendly act for the cripple to remain and chat a while, but Jack would listen to nothing of the kind.
Despite his weariness he set out on the return journey at once, but with a lighter heart than when he left Aunt Nancy's home.
It was dark when he came down the lane and found the little woman sitting under the old oak.
"O Jack dear!" she cried in tones of mingled joy and surprise. "It's really you, and that hard-hearted farmer didn't send you to the poor farm. But perhaps you couldn't find him," she added as the thought occurred to her.
"Yes I did, an' I told him you was sorry."
Then Jack related the incidents of his journey, reserving until the last the startling news which promised to restore Louis to his parents' arms.
Aunt Nancy alternately laughed and cried when she heard the story, and at its conclusion said,—
"What a lesson that should be to us, Jack dear. If I hadn't acted the lie Louis would have seen his mother just so much sooner, and I have been the means of making the poor woman's heart ache longer than was necessary. You thought it wasn't a sin because I didn't speak the words which formed the falsehood, and yet you can now see that increased trouble has been brought about by it."
"But Mr. Pratt told a reg'lar lie."