He spoke very solemnly and tenderly to her, reminded her of her father’s generosity and good gifts to the church and the poor, and said:  “O, Margaret, dear lass! what good at a’ will thy silent money do thee in that Day?  It ought to speak for thee out o’ the mouths o’ the sorrowfu’ an’ the needy, the widows an’ the fatherless—­indeed it ought.  And thou hast gien naught for thy Master’s sake these three years!  I’m fair ’shamed to think thou bears sae kind a name as thy father’s.”

What could Margaret do?  She broke into passionate sobbing, and, when the good old man left the cottage an hour afterward there was a strange light on his face, and he walked and looked as if he had come from some interview that had set him for a little space still nearer to the angels.  Margaret had now one true friend, and in a few days after this she rented her cottage and went to live with the dominie.  Nothing could have so effectually reinstated her in public opinion; wherever the dominie went on a message of help or kindness Margaret went with him.  She fell gradually into a quieter but still more affectionate regard—­the aged, the sick and the little children clung to her hands, and she was comforted.

Her life seemed, indeed, to have wonderfully narrowed, but when the tide is fairly out, it begins to turn again.  In the fifth year of her poverty there was from various causes, such an increase in the value of real estate, that her rents were nearly doubled, and by the end of the seventh year she had paid the last shilling of her assumed debt, and was again an independent woman.

It might be two years after this that she one day received a letter that filled her with joy and amazement.  It contained a check for her whole nine hundred pounds back again.  “The bank had just received from Ronald Sinclair, of San Francisco, the whole amount due it, with the most satisfactory acknowledgment and interest.”  It was a few minutes before Margaret could take in all the joy this news promised her; but when she did, the calm, well-regulated girl had never been so near committing extravagances.

She ran wildly upstairs to the dominie, and, throwing herself at his knees, cried out, amid tears and smiles:  “Father! father!  Here is your money!  Here is the poor’s money and the church’s money!  God has sent it back to me!  Sent it back with such glad tidings!”—­and surely if angels rejoice with repenting sinners, they must have felt that day a far deeper joy with the happy, justified girl.

She knew now that she also would soon hear from Ronald, and she was not disappointed.  The very next day the dominie brought home the letter.  Margaret took it upstairs to read it upon her knees, while the good old man walked softly up and down his study praying for her.  Presently she came to him with a radiant face.

“Is it weel wi’ the lad, ma dawtie?”

“Yes, father; it is very well.”  Then she read him the letter.