laimed Frank with enthusiasm.

"So it will. But don't you think your father will make it up to us,
when he finds out how generous we have been?"

Frank looked into the face of his companion with an expression of
painful surprise on his countenance.

"I don't want him to do so."

"Why not?"

"It would rob the action of all its merit. If you give your money with
the hope of having it restored to you, I beg you not to give it at all.
I have abandoned all thoughts of having any money to spend to-morrow."

"And not go to Boston?"

"No."

"What will your father say when you tell him you are not going? He will
want to know the reason."

"I will tell him day after to-morrow."

"He will want to know to-morrow."

"I can persuade him to wait. Shall we go over to-night, and give the
money to Mrs. Weston?"

"Yes; if you like."

"Wait a moment, and I will go into the house and ask my father to let
me stay out till nine o'clock this evening."

Frank bounded lightly over the green lawn to his father's house, near
which the conversation took place.

Rippleton, the scene of my story, is a New England village, situated
about ten miles from Boston. It is one of those thriving places which
have sprung into existence in a moment, as it were, under the potent
stimulus of a railroad and a water privilege. Twenty years ago it
consisted of only one factory and about a dozen houses. Now it is a
great, bustling village, and probably in a few years will become a
city. Trains of cars arrive and depart every hour, as the Traveller's
Guide says; and a double row of factories extends along the sides of
the river. It has its banks, its hotels, its dozen churches, and its
noisy streets--indeed, almost all the pomp and circumstance of a great
city.

About a mile from the village was the beautiful residence of Captain
Sedley--Frank's father. He was a retired shipmaster, in which capacity
he had acquired a handsome fortune. His house was built within a few
rods of Wood Lake--a beautiful sheet of water, nearly three miles in
length, and a little more than a mile in width. On the river, which
formed the outlet of this lake, the village of Rippleton was situated;
and its clear waters turned the great wheels of the factories.

Captain Sedley had chosen this place in which to spend the evening of
his days, because it seemed to him the loveliest spot in all New
England. The glassy, transparent lake, with its wood-crowned shores,
its pictur