Meanwhile Lena was fretting herself ill over the terrible secret which she imagined she shared with no one in the house; turning over and over in her mind all manner of impossible devices for the relief of her scapegrace brother. Not for one instant would she entertain the thought of applying to her uncle in accordance with his indelicate suggestion; and her father and mother were, to her mind, as well as to Percy's, utterly out of the question. No idea of applying to them entered her head. The change in her, her troubled, worried expression, the almost hunted look in her beautiful eyes made her uncle and aunt extremely anxious, especially as they could find no clew to the cause, for they knew nothing of the letter from Percy.

The child wrote to her brother and told him that she could see no way of procuring the money for him, for she would not apply to their uncle; but she would try and contrive some means of helping him.

With the heedless insouciance which distinguished him, or rather with the selfish facility with which he threw a share, and a large share, of his burdens upon others, he had comforted himself with the thought that Lena would surely contrive some way of helping him; would, in spite of her declarations to the contrary, apply to Colonel Rush, guarding his secret, and taking upon herself all the weight and embarrassment of asking such an unheard of favor. But although he did strive to be hopeful, he had times of the deepest despondency and dread, when he looked his predicament fully in the face; and he felt it hard that Lewis, who, after all, had been the chief offender, should be, as he in his careless way phrased it, "all right" at what seemed to be so little cost to him, while he, Percy, was under this cloud of apprehension and uncertainty.

Harley Seabrooke was not hard-hearted, although he was determined that the two boys should make full restitution, and justly so, and he could not but feel sorry for Percy when these fits of despair overtook him.

"Neville," he said to him one day, "have you written to your parents about this matter?"

"To my father and mother! oh, no!" answered Percy, looking dismayed at the bare idea of such a thing; "Oh, no, of course not. How could I?"

"It seems to me," said Harley, eying the boy curiously, "that such a thing is the most natural course when one is in such a difficulty. Certainly it must involve confession, but they would be the most lenient and tender judges one could have. Why not make a clean breast of it, Percy, and have it over? You hardly, I suppose, can obtain such a sum of money except by application to them; or have you some other friend who will help you?"

"I have—I did—I mean I will," stammered Percy. "I have asked and—and—I know I must have it somehow."

He looked so utterly depressed and forlorn that Harley's heart was moved for him.

"If I were rich, Percy," he said, "if I could in any way afford it, I would not insist upon such early payment of my loss; but it is only just that you should make it good. You did not know what you were doing, it is true, the extent of the injury to me; but you had suffered yourself to be tempted into wrong by a boy much worse than yourself, and you meant to play me a sorry trick, which has recoiled upon yourself. That money, the check you destroyed, I had received from a publisher for a piece of work over which I had spent much time and which I had devoted to a special purpose. I have a young sister who has a wonderful talent for drawing and painting, is, in fact, a genius; and her gift ought to be cultivated, for we hope it will, in time, be a source of profit to herself and others; but my father is a poor clergyman, and all of us try to do what we can to help ourselves and one another. You know on what terms I am here; and it is only through the kindness of Dr. Leacraft that I enjoy the advantages I do; and of late I have been able to earn a little by articles I have written for papers and magazines. This two hundred dollars I had received for a little book, and I intended it should be the means of giving my little sister at least a beginning of the drawing lessons which would be of so much use to her. You may judge then if I do not feel that I must have it back, and that without farther delay. I am sorry for you, but I cannot sacrifice my sister."

Seabrooke was regarded by the boys as unsympathetic, cold, and stiff in his manner—perhaps he was somewhat so—and as he seldom spoke of himself they knew little of his affairs or of his family relations; and he was also considered to have a rather elderly style of talking, unbefitting his comparatively few years.

Percy's manner, which had been rather sullen and listless when the other began to speak, had brightened as Seabrooke went on; and when he mentioned his sister, his face lighted with a look of interest which somewhat surprised his senior.

"What is your sister's name? Gladys?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Harley, surprised at the question. "Do you know her?"

"Yes—no—my sister and some other girls I know, know her," said Percy; and then followed the story of the meeting in the church and of the interest taken in the young artist by Lena, Maggie and Bessie.

"So it was your friends and relatives, then, who sent the check for the church to my father, and the Christmas box to my sister?" said Seabrooke, feeling much more inclined to forgive Percy than he had felt since the destruction of his letter.

"I don't know anything about a check," answered Percy, for Colonel Rush had not mentioned that little circumstance to the junior portion of his family, "but I do know that the girls sent your sister a Christmas box, for I helped to pack it myself, and they are all agog about some prize they hope to win among them, a prize which will give them somehow, an artist education, which they can give to some girl who needs it. I don't know exactly how it is, only I do know they are all just agog about it, and they want it for your sister Gladys, at least for a girl of that name. But I believe I ought not to have spoken of that; it is only a chance, you know; there are ever so many girls to try for the prize, and our girls may not gain it."

"And my sister don't want the chance," said Harley, the stubborn pride which was one of his characteristics, up in arms at once. "We may be and are poor, but we will not ask for charity."

"Well, you needn't be so highty-tighty about it," said Percy, taking a more sensible view of the matter than his older companion did. "I don't call it charity, and if it is, it comes from somebody who is dead, so one needn't feel any special obligation to the girls. It is only that they earn the right to say to whom the gift shall go; they don't give it. And," he added, with his usual happy faculty for saying the wrong thing, "I don't see why you should be so stiff about it when you yourself"—he paused, seeing by the dark look which came over Seabrooke's face that he had touched upon a sore point.

"You would say," said Harley, stiffly, "when I accept favors from Dr. Leacraft for myself; but you will please remember that I, at least, give some equivalent for my tuition, so I am not altogether a charity scholar. And it is my object to provide for my sister myself, and I still insist that you shall pay me what you owe me, Neville. If your friends earned forty scholarships for Gladys, that would make no difference in my just demands."

"Nobody asked that it should!" exclaimed Percy, flying into one of the rare passions to which his amiable, easy-going nature would occasionally lapse under great provocation, "nobody asked that it should; and you are"—and here he launched into some most uncomplimentary remarks, and then dashed from the room, leaving Harley to feel that he had made a great mistake, and missed, by the insinuation that Percy fancied he would abate his demands for restitution, an opportunity of influencing the boy, who was easily led for either good or evil.

The result of this was, on Percy's part, another frantic appeal to Lena to find some means of helping him before Easter, that Seabrooke was very hard on him and determined not to spare him.

This letter would never have reached Lena had it not been delivered into the hands of Colonel Rush, who met the postman at the foot of his own steps, and took this with others from him. For Hannah, following out her policy that the end justified the means, and undeterred by the scrape into which Percy had brought himself by means somewhat similar, kept on the watch for letters for Lena, determined to hide and destroy any which should come from Percy.

She fancied that she had not yet made up her mind to the course she would pursue; but she really had done so, though the faithful old nurse clung till the last moment to the cherished gold, with a faint hope that something might yet chance to save it.

The colonel went up to pay a little visit to Lena, and came down looking rather perturbed and anxious.

"That child continues to look badly," he said to Mrs. Rush, "and she appears to me to have something on her mind. Do you think it is possible, now that Russell is better?"

"I am sure of it," answered his wife, "sure that something is troubling her very much, and I was about to speak of it to you. She is such a reticent, reserved child, that I did not like to try and force her confidence, although I have opened the way for her to give it to me if she chose to do so."

"I brought her a letter from Percy yesterday," said the colonel, "and when I handed it to her, she flushed painfully and seemed very nervous, and I noticed that she did not open it while I was in the room. I wonder if he is in any trouble."

Mrs. Rush shook her head. She had not even noticed this, and had no clew whereby she might guess at the cause of Lena's depression; but she said:

"I am going to send for Maggie and Bessie to come and spend the day with her. She is able, I think, to have them with her, and they may brighten her a little."

No sooner said than done; the colonel, always glad of any excuse for bringing these prime favorites of his to his own house, went for them himself, and finding them disengaged, this being Saturday and a holiday, brought them back with him.

He had the pleasure of seeing Lena's pale face light up when she saw them, and soon left the young patient with her two little friends to work what healing influences they might.

Now, although Lena was very fond of both these girls, Bessie was her special favorite, perhaps because she, being less shy than Maggie, had been the first to offer her sympathy and comfort at the time when Lena had been left at her uncle's with her heart wrung with anxiety and distress for her brother Russell who was then very dangerously ill.

And Bessie was now quick to see that something was wrong with Lena. Maggie saw it too, but shy Maggie, unless it was with some one as frank as herself, could not seek to draw forth confidences. But, with her usual considerate thoughtfulness, she did that which was perhaps better; she presently withdrew herself to the next room with Elsie and little May and amused them there, so that Lena might have the opportunity of speaking to Bessie if she so chose.

But not even to Bessie would or could Lena confide the story of Percy's misdoing and its direful results, longing though she might be for her sympathy and advice. Lena knew Bessie's strict conscientiousness, which was almost equalled by her own, and she knew also Bessie's complete trust in her parents, and how in any trouble her first thought would be to confide in them in full faith that they would be only too ready to lift the burden from her shoulders.

No, Bessie was not like herself; she had no dread of her father and mother, nor had any of the children in that large and happy family; and it would have seemed unnatural to them to have any such fears.

But there was a question which had been agitating her own mind which she meant to ask Bessie and hear her clear, straightforward views on the matter; for Lena feared, and justly, that her own wishes might have too much weight with her own opinion, and she dared not yield to these for fear of doing wrong.

"Lena, dear," said Bessie, "is your brother Russell worse?"

"No," answered Lena, "he is improving every day now, mamma says."

"You seem rather troubled and as if something were the matter," said Bessie, simply, but in half-questioning tones, thus opening the door for confidence if Lena wished to give it.

"I would like to ask you something," said Lena, wistfully. "You remember the checks papa and Russell sent me?"

"Oh, yes, of course," answered Bessie. "How could I forget them?"

"Do you think," said Lena, slowly and doubtfully, "that if a person who was not a poor person was in great trouble, it would be quite right to use some of that money to help them out of their trouble? You know papa and Russell say I may use it for any charity I choose. Do you think it would be called charity to do that when the person was in trouble only because he had been—had done very wrong?"

"I don't know. I don't quite understand," said Bessie, quite at sea, as she might well be, at such a vague representation of the case. "I suppose," thoughtfully, "that it might be right if you felt quite sure that your father or brother would be willing."

"But they would not be—at least—oh, I do not know what to think or what to do," exclaimed poor Lena, breaking down under the weight of all her troubles and perplexities.

"I can't tell what to say unless I know more about it," said Bessie, taking Lena's hand; "but, Lena dear,"—approaching the subject of Lena's relations with her own family with some reluctance, "but, Lena dear, if you do not want to ask your father and mother, why do you not ask Uncle Horace? He is so very nice and good, and he knows about almost everything."

But before she had finished speaking she saw that the suggestion did not meet the case at all.

"Uncle Horace! Oh, no!" ejaculated Lena, "that would be worse than all! Oh, if I could only tell Russell!"

"Why do you not?" asked Bessie.

"It would make him ill again; it might kill him," answered Lena, more excitedly than ever. "Tell me what it is right to do by myself, Bessie."

"How can I, dear, when I do not know what it is?" said the troubled and sympathizing Bessie.

Lena looked into the clear, tender eyes before her own, and her resolution was taken; although, knowing, as she did, Bessie's almost morbid conscientiousness and her horror of anything small, mean or tricky, she knew that she would be terribly shocked when she heard the source of the trouble; but she must tell some one, must have a little advice.

"I want to tell you, Bessie," she said, falteringly, "but you will not tell any one, will you? Not even Maggie?"

"No. Maggie is very good about that, and not at all curious," said Bessie. "I couldn't keep a secret of my own from her; but some one else's she would not mind. But mamma—could I not tell mamma?"

"Oh, no," said Lena, "no! Must you tell your mother everything—things that are not secrets of your own?"

Bessie stood thoughtful for a moment.

"No," she at last answered, a little reluctantly. "If mamma knew it would be a help to some one to have me keep a secret, I do not think she would mind; for mamma has a good deal"—of confidence in her children, she would have added, but checked herself with the thought that Lena enjoyed no such blessing, and that she was presenting too forcible a contrast between her own lot and that of her little friend, and she hastily substituted, "a great deal of good sense for her children. But, Lena dear, you do not know how well my mamma keeps a secret, and how she can help people out of trouble."

"No, no!" said Lena again, "I couldn't let her know. He wouldn't like it; he would never forgive me," she added, forgetting herself.

Light flashed upon Bessie.

"Lena, is it Percy?" she asked.

"Yes," faltered Lena; and then followed the whole story; at least, the whole as she knew it, so much as Percy had revealed to her.

Bessie was indeed shocked, perhaps even more at the contemptible selfishness and weakness which had led Percy to throw the burden of this secret upon his young sister, and to appeal to her for help, than she was by his original fault. Her own brother Harry was noted for his chivalrous gallantry to girls; so much so, that it was a subject of joke among his schoolmates and companions; and Fred, although known as a tease, was quite above anything small or petty, and would have scorned to ask such a thing as this from any girl, especially from one who was weak and ill, and but just coming back from the borders of the grave. Bessie felt no sympathy whatever for Percy, but more than she could express for the innocent Lena; and her indignation at the reckless brother found vent in terms unusually emphatic for her.

But, alas for Lena! Bessie could see no way out of the difficulty more than Lena could herself. In spite of her ardent wish to do this, her upright little soul could by no means advise or justify for this purpose the use of any part of the sums put by Mr. Neville and Russell into Lena's hands.

"For you know, dear Lena," she said, "your father and brother said for charity, didn't they? And Percy is not a 'charity.'"

"No," answered Lena, with a pitiful, pleading tremor in her voice, "but papa said I could use it for any good object I chose. See, Bessie, here is his letter, and that is just what he says."

"Yes," said Bessie, glancing at the lines in Mr. Neville's letter to which Lena pointed, "yes; but Percy is not an 'object.' At least not what your father means by 'any object.'"

"And he certainly is not good" she added to herself; then said slowly again: "But, Lena, why don't you tell your brother Russell, when you say he is so good and nice?"

But to this also Lena returned the most decided negative. No, Russell must not be worried or made anxious and unhappy, no matter what might happen to Percy or to the rest of the family. Russell must be spared, at all hazards, and it was plainly to be seen that, distressed as she was for Percy, his welfare was by no means to be weighed in the balance against that of his elder brother.

Bessie, helpless as Lena herself, had no farther suggestion to offer, and save that she now shared the burden of her secret with some one who could sympathize, Lena had gained nothing by imparting it to her little friend; and when Maggie returned, she found her looking as depressed and anxious as before, while Bessie's sweet face also now wore a troubled expression.

Maggie asked no questions; but when they were at home that evening,
Bessie said to her:

"Maggie, dear, I have to have a secret from you. It is not mine, but Lena's, and she will not let me tell even you; and she will not tell Uncle Horace or Aunt Marion or any of her people. And then again it is not her very own secret, but some one else's, and it is a great weight on her mind because she does not know what to do about it. And so it is on mine," she added, with a deep sigh.

"I wish you could tell me," said Maggie; "not that I am so very curious about it, although, of course, I should like very much to know; but cannot you tell mamma, Bessie?"

"No," answered Bessie; "it seemed to me mamma would not mind if I promised I would not tell even her, when Lena seemed to have such a trouble and wanted to tell me. I can't bear not to tell her or not to tell you; but I thought I would promise, because Lena is such a very good girl and so very true, and she has such a perfectly horrible mother. Maggie, every night when you say your prayers, do you thank God that Mrs. Neville is not your mother? I do."

"Yes, and about a thousand times a day besides," answered Maggie.
"But, Bessie, could you help Lena in her trouble?"

"No," said Bessie, her face shadowed again, "and I do not see how any one can help her, so long as she will not tell any grown-up person. Not one of us children could help her."

Bessie was depressed and very thoughtful that evening, and so silent as to attract the attention of her family; but to all inquiries she returned only a faint smile without words, while to her mother she confessed that she had "a weight on her mind," but that this was caused by another person's secret which she could not tell.

Accustomed to invite and receive the unlimited confidence of her children, Mrs. Bradford still treated them as if they were reasonable beings, and on the rare occasions, such as the present, when they withheld it, she was satisfied to believe that they had good and sufficient reasons for so doing.