, that it was all for the best; that He
who brings good out of evil, would bring a blessing out of the wrong
which Fanny had done.

The next morning the wanderer bade farewell to Mrs. Kent, and took the
train for Woodville.

CHAPTER XI.

PENITENCE AND PARDON.

Fanny arrived at the station near Woodville by the early train from the
city. On the way, she had been thinking of her own guilt, and
considering what she should do and say when she stood in the presence
of her injured friends. She was not studying how to conceal or palliate
her offence, but how she could best tell the whole truth. She gave
herself no credit for any good deed she had done during her absence;
she did not flatter herself that she had been benevolent and kind in
using the stolen money as she had used it; she did not believe that her
tender vigil at the bedside of the dying girl made her less guilty.

She felt that she deserved a severe punishment, and that it would do
her good to suffer for what she had done. She was even willing to be
sent to prison, to be disgraced, and banished from the happy home at
Woodville, whose hospitality she had abused. She felt that the penalty
of her errors, whatever it might be, would do her good. She was filled
with contrition and shame as she left the station; she hung her head,
and did not dare to look the people she met in the face. The Fanny who
went from Woodville a few days before had returned an entirely
different being.

Slowly and gloomily she walked down the road that led to the residence
of Mr. Grant. It seemed as though she had been absent a year, and
everything looked strange to her, though the change was all in herself.
All the currents of her former life had ceased to flow; the movements
of the wheel of events had been abruptly suspended. What gladdened her
before did not gladden her now, and what had once been a joy was now a
sorrow. She felt as though she had been transferred from the old world,
in which she had rejoiced in mischief and wrong, to a new world, whose
hopes and joys had not yet been revealed to her.

She approached the cottage of Mr. Long, the constable, who had probably
been engaged in the search for her since her departure. She went up to
the door and knocked. Mr. Long had just finished his breakfast, and she
was shown into the little parlor.

"So you have got back, Fanny Grant," said he, very coldly and sternly,
as he entered the room where she stood waiting for him.