“Well, girl,” said Jonathan, gulping down an apple in his throat, “I—­I won’t have the money, that’s all.  Oh, Grace, Grace!” he burst out earnestly, “let me be the blessed means of helping you in trouble—­I would die to do it, Grace; indeed I would!”

The dear girl fell upon his neck, and they wept together like two loving little sisters.

“Jonathan”—­her duteous spirit was the first to speak—­“forgive this weakness of a foolish woman’s heart:  I will not put away the help which God provides us at your friendly hands:  only this, kind brother—­let me call you brother—­keep the purse; if my father pines for want of work, and the babes at home lack food, pardon my boldness if I take the help you offer.  Meanwhile, God in heaven bless you, Jonathan, as He will!”

And she turned to go away.

“Won’t you take a keepsake, Grace—­one little token?  I wish I had any thing here but money to give you for my sake.”

“It would even be ungenerous in me to refuse you, brother; one little piece will do.”

Jonathan fumbled up something in a crumpled piece of paper, and said sobbingly—­“Let it be this new half-crown, Grace:  I won’t say, keep it always; only when you want to use that and more, I humbly ask you’ll please come to me.”

Now a more delicate, a more unselfish act, was never done by man:  along with the half-crown he had packed up two sovereigns! and thereby not only escaped thanks, concealed his own beneficence, and robbed his purse of half its little store; but actually he was, by doing so, depriving himself for a month, or maybe more, of a visit from Grace Acton.  Had it been only half-a-crown, and want had pinched the family (neither Grace nor Jonathan could guess of Ben Burke’s bounty, and for all they knew Roger had not enough for the morrow’s meals)—­had poverty come in like an armed man, and stood upon their threshold a grim sentinel—­doubtless she must have run to him within a day or two.  How sweet would it have been to have kept her coming day by day, and to a commoner affection how excusable! but still how selfish, how unlike the liberal and honourable feeling that filled the manly heart of Jonathan Floyd!  It was a noble act, and worthy of a long parenthesis.

If Grace Acton had looked back as she hurried down the avenue, she would have seen poor Jonathan still watching her with all his eyes till she was out of sight.  Perhaps, though, she might have guessed it—­there is a sympathy in these things, the true animal magnetism—­and I dare say that was the very reason why she did not once turn her head.

CHAPTER XIII.

The discovery.