Roger’s hand, usually so strong and steady, trembled.  These words, warm from the heart of the girl who had hitherto been so distant and unapproachable, almost took away his breath.  “Please don’t,” he faltered.  “Such gratitude—­such words—­from you oppress me.  I don’t deserve such thanks.  Any decent man would have been glad to save one who was so good and so wronged, and I shall always regard it as the luckiest event of my life that I happened to be the one to aid you.  Oh, you don’t know, you never can know what immense good-fortune it was.”  Then, as if fearing he might lose his self-control, he broke hastily away to greet Mrs. Jocelyn, but Belle caught him with the impulse of the warm-hearted sister she had become, and throwing her arm around his neck exclaimed, “I’m going to pay you with the best coin I have.”  And she kissed him again and again.

“Oh, Jupiter!” gasped the blushing youth.  “Bless that floor-walker and all his deviltry!  I shall let him off just a little for this.”

“No, don’t.  I’ll give you another kiss if you’ll get even with him,” Belle whispered.

“It’s a bargain,” he said in her ear, and Belle ratified the compact immediately.

“Oh,” thought Mildred, in the depths of her heart, “if it were only Belle instead of me!”

Mrs. Jocelyn’s greeting was scarcely less demonstrative than Belle’s, but there was a motherly tenderness in it that brought tears into the young fellow’s eyes.  “Blessings on you, my dear good boy,” she murmured, “and a mother’s blessing will do you no harm.”

“Look here,” said Roger brusquely, “if you don’t let up on a fellow I shall make a confounded fool of myself.”  And his lip quivered as if he were a boy in truth.

Mr. Wentworth, who in their strong feeling had been quite ignored, at first looked on with smiling sympathy.  Mildred had given him the hand that Roger released, and holding it in a warm clasp he did not speak at first, but watched a scene that had for him the attractions of a real drama.  He now did not help Roger much by saying, in his hearty way, “That’s right; lay it on strong; he deserves all, and more.  Miss Mildred, I have been yellow with envy for the last two hours because I was absent.  I would have eulogized you so in court that the judge would have addressed you as Saint Mildred, and yet it’s but honest to say that you would have gone to jail like many a saint before you had not Roger got hold of the facts which enabled the judge to prove you innocent.  The law is awfully matter-of-fact, and that lace on your person had to be accounted for.”

“Yes, yes,” cried Belle, “tell us everything.  We’ve been dying with curiosity all day, and you’ve been so mysterious and important, and have put on such airs, that you quite awed me.  Seems to me that for a country boy you are blossoming fast.”

“It isn’t necessary for a country boy to be a fool, especially when he has eyes,” replied Roger in an off-hand way.  “It’s all simple enough.  I happened to be passing the store where Miss Mildred—­”