legible characters. Very slowly the creditors deciphered their meaning. This was the sentence they finally made of it:

*Give the farm and twenty thousand dollars to Nancy."

This was all. No date, no address at the beginning, no name signed at the end. It seemed as if some half-paralyzed, stiffening hand had, by a last, mighty effort, just managed to trace out the ragged, disjointed words.

I do not know as any such thought passed through the creditors' minds; but it was with a look of heightened interest that they turned to Mrs. Biddles for an explanation of the strange document, so strangely thrust upon them.

Mrs. Biddles's calmness had entirely left her. She cowered guiltily as she half raised her eyes to theirs, and she spoke with an effort, in a husky voice, not at all like her

own.

"I don't know why I kept that paper,” said she. "Some power greater than my

own will has forced me to show it now; and though it would be a blessing at this moment to be struck dumb, I am compelled to speak. You are aware, most of you, how suddenly my husband died. He had an only sister, a widow, with a family of four children. For years he had supported her. He had bought the farm on which she lived, and settled her upon it; and it was his purpose, often expressed, to leave her independent, should he die first. But, cut down like the grass, at a moment's notice, this purpose was thwarted. Still, even in his sudden death-agony, the thought haunted him; and sitting at his desk in the library, he wrote those words with his last breath; for he was leaning forward over the paper, with the pen clinched in his hand, when I found him there, dead."

Such was the guilty woman's confession. It seems strange that she should have made it now, when the power of restitution was passed from her hands. But "murder will out" is an old saying; and at the first she

had told of a power stronger than herself, that bade her speak. It was the still small voice of conscience, that, if kept back and tampered with, will at last burst its fetters and make itself heard. It is more resistless in its way than the spring torrents, when they rise like giants from their icy beds and sweep everything before them.

And the creditors, stern, wronged men, owning neither kith nor kin to the man whose last spark of life had gone out in the blotted line before them, were more charitable — though many of them could ill afford it-than she who had borne his name, and who might, in the days gone by, have spared this gift from her abundance, and not missed it any more than a drop of water is missed out of the ocean, or a grain of sand from the shore.

The money was gone, but the deed of the farm was made over to "Nancy Down and her heirs," forever.

CHAPTER XX.

"HOW

ALL FOR THE BEST.

OW I do pity her!" said Becky; and though there had been a clamor of

voices about her for the last five minutes, these were the first words she had spoken.

The occasion was one of great moment, for on the table lay the deed of the farm, with its stamps and seals. A brief letter from the creditors had also been received, as well as a longer and more comprehensive one from Judge Peters.

Becky was thinking of this last, when she said, "How I do pity her!" for in it Judge Peters had told of the utter despair and desolation her aunt had given herself up to. She would see no one, but sat for hours brooding over the ruin that had befallen her, declaring it was a judgment

upon her, and reproaching herself for her wickedness. The house was to be sold over her head in a few days; but, though she was entirely destitute, she gave no thought or preparation to the future. It was in vain that Mrs. Peters, who had forced herself upon her, had tried to rouse her.

"What matters it what becomes of me?” the wretched woman had answered. "It is eternal punishment either way, whether I live or die."

"Think of your children," her friend had urged.

୧୯

"I do think of them," had been the response. Night and day I think of them, branded with my sin. Are not the sins of the parents visited upon the children?"

And in this half-frenzied state she still remained.

Mrs. Down and the boys had not been so much interested in this part of the letter as Becky. The idea of the twenty thousand dollars which they should have had, and