"It seems to me," said Harley, eying the boy curiously, "that such a thing is the most natural course when one is in such a difficulty. Certainly it must involve confession, but they would be the most lenient and tender judges one could have. Why not make a clean breast of it, Percy, and have it over? You hardly, I suppose, can obtain such a sum of money except by application to them; or have you some other friend who will help you?"
"I have—I did—I mean I will," stammered Percy. "I have asked and—and—I know I must have it somehow."
He looked so utterly depressed and forlorn that Harley's heart was moved for him.
"If I were rich, Percy," he said, "if I could in any way afford it, I would not insist upon such early payment of my loss; but it is only just that you should make it good. You did not know what you were doing, it is true, the extent of the injury to me; but you had suffered yourself to be tempted into wrong by a boy much worse than yourself, and you meant to play me a sorry trick, which has recoiled upon yourself. That money, the check you destroyed, I had received from a publisher for a piece of work over which I had spent much time and which I had devoted to a special purpose. I have a young sister who has a wonderful talent for drawing and painting, is, in fact, a genius; and her gift ought to be cultivated, for we hope it will, in time, be a source of profit to herself and others; but my father is a poor clergyman, and all of us try to do what we can to help ourselves and one another. You know on what terms I am here; and it is only through the kindness of Dr. Leacraft that I enjoy the advantages I do; and of late I have been able to earn a little by articles I have written for papers and magazines. This two hundred dollars I had received for a little book, and I intended it should be the means of giving my little sister at least a beginning of the drawing lessons which would be of so much use to her. You may judge then if I do not feel that I must have it back, and that without farther delay. I am sorry for you, but I cannot sacrifice my sister."
Seabrooke was regarded by the boys as unsympathetic, cold, and stiff in his manner—perhaps he was somewhat so—and as he seldom spoke of himself they knew little of his affairs or of his family relations; and he was also considered to have a rather elderly style of talking, unbefitting his comparatively few years.
Percy's manner, which had been rather sullen and listless when the other began to speak, had brightened as Seabrooke went on; and when he mentioned his sister, his face lighted with a look of interest which somewhat surprised his senior.
"What is your sister's name? Gladys?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Harley, surprised at the question. "Do you know her?"
"Yes—no—my sister and some other girls I know, know her," said Percy; and then followed the story of the meeting in the church and of the interest taken in the young artist by Lena, Maggie and Bessie.
"So it was your friends and relatives, then, who sent the check for the church to my father, and the Christmas box to my sister?" said Seabrooke, feeling much more inclined to forgive Percy than he had felt since the destruction of his letter.