“Oh, Pam, Pam, what am I to say to you? This is worse than I imagined! Your blue coat—and it was quite good still! I can’t possibly accept a present obtained in such a way!”
She cast an appealing glance at her husband, who had been sitting covering his mouth with his hand, and trying in vain to subdue the twinkle in his eyes as he listened to Pam’s extraordinary confession. Now he looked at the child’s frightened, shrinking face, and said kindly—
“I think Pam and I will have a quiet talk together while you adjourn to the drawing-room. She did not mean to do wrong, and I am sure she will never offend again in the same way when she understands things in their right light.”
So Mrs Trevor and the elder children went to the drawing-room, and, ten minutes later, a subdued little Pam crept up to her mother’s side, holding out a bright crown-piece on her palm.
“Father says General Digby would like me best to pay my debts. Will you please give some to the others to pay for the things I took?”
“Thank you, Pam. I shall be very pleased to do so,” said Mrs Trevor quietly. Her heart ached at being obliged to take the child’s fortune from her, but she knew it was the right thing to do, and would not allow herself to hesitate. “And now, darling, I shall be delighted to have the palm. It is indeed the very thing I wanted.”
Pam tried to smile, but her lips quivered. A whole crown-piece, and a new one into the bargain! A Vanderbilt deprived of his millions could not have felt his poverty more bitterly than she did at that moment!