The hour was yet so early, and the streets so deserted, that Mary almost trembled to find herself in them alone; but she was anxious to do what she considered her duty without the pain of contention.  John Glegg was naturally an honest and well-intentioned man, but the weakness that had blasted his life adhered to him still.  They were doubtless in terrible need of the guinea, and since it was not by any means certain that the real owner would be found, he saw no great harm in appropriating it; but Mary wasted no casuistry on the matter.  That the money was not legitimately theirs, and that they had no right to retain it, was all she saw; and so seeing, she acted unhesitatingly on her convictions.

She had bought the meal at Mr Benjamin’s, because her father complained of the quality of that she procured in the smaller shops, and on this occasion he had served her himself.  From the earliness of the hour, however, though the shop was open, he was not in it when she arrived on her errand of restitution; but addressing Leah Leet, who was dusting the counter, she mentioned the circumstance, and tendered the guinea; which the other took and dropped into the till, without acknowledgment or remark.  Now Mary had not restored the money with any view to praise or reward:  the thought of either had not occurred to her; but she was, nevertheless, pained by the dry, cold, thankless manner with which the restitution was accepted, and she felt that a little civility would not have been out of place on such an occasion.

She was thinking of this on her way back, when she observed Mr Benjamin on the opposite side of the street.  The fact was, that he did not sleep at the shop, but in one of the suburbs of the metropolis, and he was now proceeding from his residence to Long Acre.  When he caught her eye, he was standing still on the pavement, and looking, as it appeared, at her, so she dropped him a courtesy, and walked forwards; while the old man said to himself:  “That’s the girl that got the guinea in her meal yesterday.  I wonder if she has been to return it!”

It was Mary’s pure, innocent, but dejected countenance, that had induced him to make her the subject of one of his most costly experiments.  He thought if there was such a thing as honesty in the world, that it would find a fit refuge in that young bosom; and the early hour, and the direction in which she was coming, led him to hope that he might sing Eureka at last.  When he entered the shop, Leah stood behind the counter, as usual, looking very staid and demure; but all she said was,’Good-morning;’ and when he inquired if anybody had been there, she quietly answered:  ‘No; nobody.’

Mr Benjamin was confirmed in his axiom; but he consoled himself with the idea, that as the girl was doubtless very poor, the guinea might be of some use to her.  In the meantime, Mary was boiling the gruel for her father’s breakfast, the only food she could afford him, till she got a few shillings that were owing to her for needle-work.