“Ah, he never made it!” she sighed sadly to herself, as she had done months before.
She restored the pocket-book to its place, with the deed of gift safely bestowed inside, locked her trunk, and with the gold piece in her hand returned to the work-room.
Annie, pacing to and fro with agitated steps, was still its only occupant. “Oh, I thought you’d never come!” she cried, stopping in her walk and turning eagerly to Floy. “Have you got the money for me? What’s the matter? you look as if something had happened.”
“I have the money—a five-dollar gold piece which I value so highly as a keepsake that I would not spend it for myself unless I were in absolute danger of starvation,” Floy said, answering the first query, ignoring the other; “still I will lend it to you if necessary to save you from arrest. But, Annie, wouldn’t your paying the money to Mrs. Sharp look like an acknowledgment that you had really kept it back, as she says?”
“I don’t know; maybe it would,” sobbed Annie, “but she’ll send me to jail if I don’t. I don’t like to take your keepsake either; but oh dear, oh dear! what shall I do?”
At that moment Mrs. Sharp came hastily into the room. She was a quick-tempered woman, but not hard-hearted, and, her anger having had time to cool, began now to relent toward the friendless girl who had offended her. Still she did not like to retreat from the position she had taken.
“Well, Annie, what are you going to do?” she asked in a tone whose mildness surprised the child. “I hope you’ve concluded to give up the money you’ve held back from me. You may as well, for it won’t do you any good to keep it.”
“Oh, I would if I had it!” sobbed Annie, “but that woman never gave me a cent more than what I handed to you; and if you don’t believe me you can search me and my trunk.”
“Humph! there are other places where you could hide it,” was the quick, sarcastic rejoinder.