"Father," I began, "I want to tell you something."
He did not speak, but waited for me to go on.
"Do you remember spinning money with Salome on her last birthday, father?"
He nodded his head for answer.
I told him then how I had taken the shilling, what a dreadful temptation it had been to me, because I wanted so much to make up the missing shilling for the master's bill, but did not like to ask him to give me one. But I told him, too, that I saw how wrong I had been, that I had asked God to forgive me, and that I hoped he would forgive me, too, and would take the shilling I had brought for him, and put it in the till in the place of the one I had stolen.
Father stood looking at me for a long time without speaking a word. Then he put his hand on my shoulder, and said:
"Spoken like a man, Peter. Keep out of crooked paths, my lad."
Then he left me to take down the shutters, and I crept upstairs again, feeling much happier than I had done before.
It was that very Monday morning, that, as I came in from Betson's to get my dinner, I found a man whom I had never seen before talking to my father in the shop. He was a hearty man, stout and rosy, and had a pleasant, cheerful way of speaking, which had the same effect on me as a fresh, bracing wind has; it stirred me up, and made me feel in good spirits. I heard his cheerful voice before I came in at the shop door, for he spoke very loudly. He was saying to my father:
"Well, it's a good chance, this is—and I'm telling you the truth when I says so—and the missus and me will look after him, we will; so you'd better let him come."