ut what on earth's the matter, Grace?" he was obliged to repeat, for
the dear girl's agitation was extreme.

"Jonathan, can I see the baronet?"

"What, at nine in the morning, Grace Acton! Call again at two, and you
may find him getting up. He hasn't been three hours a-bed yet, and
there's nobody about but Sarah Stack and me. I wish those Lunnun sparks
would but leave the place: they do his honour no good, I'm thinking."

"Not till two!" was the slow and mournful ejaculation. What a damper to
her buoyant hopes: and Providence had seen fit to give her ill-success.
Is it so? Prosperity may come in other shapes.

"Why, Grace," suddenly said Floyd, in a very nervous way, "what makes
you call upon my master in this tidy trim?"

"To save my father," answered Innocence.

"How? why? Oh don't, Grace, don't! I'll save him--I will indeed--what is
it? Oh, don't, don't!"

For the poor affectionate fellow conjured on the spot the black vision
of a father saved by a daughter's degradation.

"Don't, Jonathan?--it's my duty, and God will bless me in it. That cruel
Mr. Jennings has resolved upon our ruin, and I wished to tell Sir John
the truth of it."

At this hearing, Jonathan brightened up, and glibly said, "Ah, indeed,
Jennings is a trouble to us all: a sad life I've led of it this year
past; and I've paid him pretty handsomely too, to let me keep the place:
while, as for John Page and the grooms, and Mr. Coachman and the
helpers, they don't touch much o' their wages on quarter-day, I know."

"Oh, but we--we are ruined! ruined! Father is forbidden now to labour
for our bread." And then with many tears she told her tale.

"Stop, Miss Grace," suddenly said Jonathan, for her beauty and eloquence
transformed the cottager into a lady in his eyes, and no wonder; "pray,
stop a minute, Miss--please to take a seat; I sha'n't be gone an
instant."

And the good-hearted fellow, whose eyes had long been very red, broke
away at a gallop; but he was back again almost as soon as gone, panting
like a post-horse. "Oh, Grace! don't be angry! do forgive me what I am
going to do."

"Do, Jonathan?" and the beauty involuntarily started--"I hope it's
nothing wrong," she added, solemnly.

"Whether right or wrong, Grace, take it kindly; you have often bade me
read my Bible, and I do so many times both for the sake of it and you;
ay, and meet with many pretty sayings in it: forgive me if I act on
one--'It is more blessed to give than to receiv