The clerk, at a hint from Mrs. Jones, now came up with great politeness and offered Mrs. Abbott the room vacated by Madame Belotti.
“Now, my dear, dear Marion,” she said, as the happy girl followed her into the room, “tell me all about it.”
But before Marion told one word of her adventurous journey she put the diminished package of bills in her hand with:
“O, Mrs. Abbott, it did seem so much like stealing to use your money!”
“My darling”—and the tears fell fast from Mrs. Abbott’s eyes—“we owe you every thing. No money can ever pay you for saving our Elfie.”
Then Marion, with her hands tightly clasped in her friend’s, told all the story of her pursuit of the child.
“It is wonderful, wonderful,” said Mrs. Abbott, when she had finished; “you have shown more sense and judgment than most older people possess, and your bravery is beyond praise. O, my dear, how much you have undergone for that darling!”
In the morning Elfie was still better, and Mrs. Abbott went down with Marion to breakfast, the latter being the object of intense interest to every one in the house, for wild reports of the story had gone about, and Marion, without wishing it, found herself famous in a small way.
Sally, the smiling and rosy chamber-maid, laid various traps for enticing Candace down-stairs so she might extract a fuller version of the story from her.
“But ef I never has a bit of food again,” said Candace, solemnly, “I’ll not let my lamb out of my sight till we gets home!”