The master shrank and turned pale before the keen, composed gaze of the boy and his manly bearing; but Stephen’s heart began to fail him, and, with trembling limbs and eyes that could scarcely see, he made his way out of the room, and out of the house, down to the end of the shrubbery.  There he could bear up no longer, and he sat down under the laurels, shivering with a feeling of despair.  The worst was come upon him now, and he saw no helper.

‘My poor boy,’ said Miss Anne’s gentle voice, and he felt her hand laid softly on his shoulder.  ’My poor Stephen, I have heard all, and I know how bitterly hard it is to bear.’

Stephen answered her only with a low, half-suppressed groan; and then he sat speechless and motionless, as if his despair had completely paralyzed him.

‘Listen, Stephen,’ she continued, with energy:  ’you told me once that the clergyman at Danesford has some paper belonging to you, about the cottage.  You must go to him, and tell him frankly your whole story.  I do not believe that what my uncle has done would stand in law, and I myself, if it be necessary, would testify that your grandfather could not understand such a transaction.  But perhaps it could be settled without going to law, if the clergyman at Danesford would take it in hand; for my uncle is very wishful to keep a good name in the country.  But if not, Stephen Fern, I promise you faithfully that should Fern’s Hollow ever come into my possession, and I be my uncle’s only relative, I will restore it to you as your rightful inheritance.’

She spoke so gravely, yet cheeringly, that a bright hope beamed into Stephen’s mind; and when Miss Anne held out her hand to him, as a pledge of her promise, she felt a warm tear fall upon it.  He rose up from the ground now, and stood out into the moonlight before her, looking up into her pale face.

‘Stephen,’ she said, more solemnly than before, ’do you find it possible to endure this injury and temptation?’

‘I’ve been praying for the master,’ answered Stephen; but there was a tone of bitterness in his voice, and his face grew gloomy again.

‘He is a very miserable man,’ said Miss Anne, sighing; ’I often hear him walking up and down his room, and crying aloud in the night-time for God to have mercy upon him; but he is a slave to the love of riches.  Years ago he might have broken through his chain, but he hugged it closely, and now it presses upon him very hardly.  All his love has been given to money, till he cannot feel any love to God; and he knows that in a few years he must leave all he loves for ever, and go into eternity without it.  He will have no rest to-night because of the injury he has done you.  He is a very wretched man, Stephen.’

‘I wouldn’t change with him for all his money,’ said Stephen pityingly.

‘Stephen,’ continued Miss Anne, ’you say you pray for my uncle, and I believe you do; but do you never feel a kind of spite and hatred against him in your very prayers?  Have you never seemed to enjoy telling our Father how very evil he is?’