with
tears and sobs.

"Comrade," he said, "come up to the castle! The snuff-box is found,
and I want you to stand in the very room where it was lost while I tell
everyone what a great and sorrowful wrong a brave and honest soldier has
suffered at my hands!"

It did not take many words to explain. In the first alarm of fire the
butler had rushed to the plate-closet to save the silver.

"Those goblets from the high shelf! Quick!" he said, to the footman who
was helping him, and with the haste about the goblets something else
came tumbling down.

"The lost diamond snuff-box!" cried the butler. "That stupid fellow I
dismissed the day it disappeared, must have put it there and forgotten
all about it!"

The fire was soon extinguished, but not a wink of sleep could his
lordship get until he could make reparation for the pitiful mistake
about the box; and once more the old soldier made his way across the
moors, even the wooden leg stepping proudly as he went along, though now
and then, as the old feeling came over him, his white head would droop
for a moment again.

The servants stood aside respectfully as he entered the castle, and they
and the other guests of that unlucky day gathered round him while his
lordship told them how the box had been found and how he could not rest
until forgiven by the brave hero he had so unjustly suspected of wrong.

"And now," said the company, "will you not tell us one thing more? Why
did you refuse to empty your pockets, as all the rest were willing to
do?"

"Because," said the old soldier sorrowfully, "because I WAS a thief, and
I could not bear that anyone should discover it! All whom I loved
best in the world were lying sick at home, starving for want of the
delicacies I could not provide, and I felt as if my heart would break to
see my plate heaped with luxuries while they had not so much as a taste!
I thought a mouthful of what I did not need might save them, and when
no one was looking I slipped some choice bits from my plate between two
pieces of bread and made way with them into my pocket. I could not let
them be discovered for a soldier is too proud to beg, but oh, my lord,
he can bear being called a thief all his life better than he can dine
sumptuously while there is only black bread at home for the sick and
weak whom he loves!"

Tears came streaming from the old soldier's listeners by this time, and
each vied with the other in heaping honors and gifts in place of the