ding evening, she transferred it to her
own. She then dressed herself, and having ascertained that her father
still slept, she quietly left the room. The hour was yet so early, and
the streets so deserted, that Mary almost trembled to find herself in
them alone; but she was anxious to do what she considered her duty
without the pain of contention. John Glegg was naturally an honest and
well-intentioned man, but the weakness that had blasted his life adhered
to him still. They were doubtless in terrible need of the guinea, and
since it was not by any means certain that the real owner would be
found, he saw no great harm in appropriating it; but Mary wasted no
casuistry on the matter. That the money was not legitimately theirs, and
that they had no right to retain it, was all she saw; and so seeing, she
acted unhesitatingly on her convictions.

She had bought the meal at Mr Benjamin's, because her father complained
of the quality of that she procured in the smaller shops, and on this
occasion he had served her himself. From the earliness of the hour,
however, though the shop was open, he was not in it when she arrived on
her errand of restitution; but addressing Leah Leet, who was dusting the
counter, she mentioned the circumstance, and tendered the guinea; which
the other took and dropped into the till, without acknowledgment or
remark. Now Mary had not restored the money with any view to praise or
reward: the thought of either had not occurred to her; but she was,
nevertheless, pained by the dry, cold, thankless manner with which the
restitution was accepted, and she felt that a little civility would not
have been out of place on such an occasion.

She was thinking of this on her way back, when she observed Mr Benjamin
on the opposite side of the street. The fact was, that he did not sleep
at the shop, but in one of the suburbs of the metropolis, and he was now
proceeding from his residence to Long Acre. When he caught her eye, he
was standing still on the pavement, and looking, as it appeared, at her,
so she dropped him a courtesy, and walked forwards; while the old man
said to himself: "That's the girl that got the guinea in her meal
yesterday. I wonder if she has been to return it!"

It was Mary's pure, innocent, but dejected countenance, that had induced
him to make her the subject of one of his most costly experiments. He
thought if there was such a thing as honesty in the world, that it would
find a fit refuge i