er, father!
How dared you, Connie, do such a thing without a word to father! It's a
shame--a disgrace! We could have found a way out--we could!"

And the poor child, worn out with anxiety and lack of sleep, and in her
sensitive pride and misery ready to turn on Connie and rend her for
having dared thus to play Lady Bountiful without warning or permission,
sank into a chair, covered her face with her hands, and burst
out sobbing.

Connie handed back the letter, and hung her head. "Won't you--won't you
let the person--who--sent the money remain unknown, Uncle Ewen?--as they
wished to be?"

Uncle Ewen sat down before his writing-table, and he also buried his
face in his hands. Connie stood between them--as it were a prisoner at
the bar--looking now very white and childish.

"Dear Uncle Ewen--"

"How did you guess?" said Nora vehemently, uncovering her face--"I never
said a word to you!"

Connie gave a tremulous laugh.

"Do you think I couldn't see that you were all dreadfully unhappy about
something? I--I made Alice tell me--"

"Alice is a sieve!" cried Nora. "I knew, father, we could never trust
her."

"And then"--Connie went on--"I--I did an awful thing. I'd better tell
you. I came and looked at Nora's papers--in the schoolroom drawer. I saw
that." She pointed penitentially to a sheet of figures lying on the
study table.

Both Nora and her uncle looked up in amazement, staring at her.

"It was at night," she said hurriedly--"last night. Oh, I put it all
back!"--she turned, pleading, to Nora--"just as I found it. You
shouldn't be angry with me--you shouldn't indeed!"

Then her own voice began to shake. She came and laid her hand on her
uncle's shoulder.

"Dear Uncle Ewen--you know, I had that extra money! What did I want with
it? Just think--if it had been mamma! Wouldn't you have let her help?
You know you would! You couldn't have been so unkind. Well then, I knew
it would be no good, if I came and asked you--you wouldn't have let me.
So I--well, I just did it!"

Ewen Hooper rose from his table in great distress of mind.

"But, my dear Connie--you are my ward--and I am your guardian! How can I
let you give me money?"

"It's my own money," said Connie firmly. "You know it is. Father wrote
to you to say I might spend it now, as I liked--all there was, except
the capital of my two thousand a year, which I mayn't spend--till I am
twenty-five. This has nothing to do with that. I'm quite free--and so
are