the young man’s heart was touched.  He excused himself, by saying that he would not have tampered with the girl, if he had known her to be virtuous.  “I have done many wrong things,” said he, “but thank God, no betrayal of confiding innocence weighs on my conscience.  I have always esteemed it the basest act of which man is capable.”  The imprisonment of the poor girl, and the forlorn situation in which she had been found, distressed him greatly.  When Friend Hopper represented that the silk had been stolen for his sake, that the girl had thereby lost profitable employment, and was obliged to return to her distant home, to avoid the danger of exposure, he took out a fifty dollar note, and offered it to pay her expenses.

“Nay,” said Isaac.  “Thou art a very rich man, I presume.  I see in thy hand a large roll of such notes.  She is the daughter of a poor widow, and thou hast been the means of doing her great injury.  Give me another.”

Lord Henry handed him another fifty dollar note, and smiled as he said, “You understand your business well.  But you have acted nobly, and I reverence you for it.  If you ever visit England, come to see me.  I will give you a cordial welcome, and treat you like a nobleman.”

“Farewell, friend,” replied the Quaker.  “Though much to blame in this affair, thou too hast behaved nobly.  Mayst thou be blessed in domestic life, and trifle no more with the feelings of poor girls; not even with those whom others have betrayed and deserted.”

When the girl was arrested, she had sufficient presence of mind to assume a false name, and by that means, her true name had been kept out of the newspapers.  “I did this,” said she, “for my poor mother’s sake.”  With the money given by Lord Stuart, the silk was paid for, and she was sent home to her mother well provided with clothing.  Her name and place of residence forever remained a secret in the breast of her benefactor.

Years after these events transpired, a lady called at Friend Hopper’s house, and asked to see him.  When he entered the room, he found a handsomely dressed young matron, with a blooming boy of five or six years old.  She rose quickly to meet him, and her voice choked as she said, “Friend Hopper, do you know me?” He replied that he did not.  She fixed her tearful eyes earnestly upon him, and said, “You once helped me when in great distress.”  But the good missionary of humanity had helped too many in distress, to be able to recollect her without more precise information.  With a tremulous voice, she bade her son go into the next room for a few minutes; then dropping on her knees, she hid her face in his lap, and sobbed out, “I am the girl who stole the silk.  Oh, where should I now be, if it had not been for you!”

When her emotion was somewhat calmed, she told him that she had married a highly respectable man, a senator of his native state.  Being on a visit in Friend Hopper’s vicinity, she had again and again passed his dwelling, looking wistfully at the windows to catch a sight of him; but when she attempted to enter her courage failed.