Part 12 (2/2)

”You shall not do this cruel thing.”

”The saints know how it breaks me heart to do it, but I can't help it.”

”Now you put all these things back into the house just as you found them.”

”Faix, I'd like to do it, miss,” said the man, taking off his hat and rubbing his tangled hair.

”You must do it.”

”And not git me rint?”

”You shall have your money--every cent of it. Put the furniture back, and you shall have your due just as soon as you have done it,” said f.a.n.n.y, as haughtily as though she had been a millionaire.

Mr. O'Shane looked at her, and seemed to be petrified with astonishment. The deed he was doing, harsh and cruel as it was, he regarded as a work of necessity. Though he owned the house occupied by Mrs. Kent, and another in which he lived himself with two other families, both of them were mortgaged for half their value, and he was obliged to pay interest on the money he owed for them. He certainly could not afford to lose his rent, to which he was justly ent.i.tled. He had indulged his tenant for a year, and nothing but the apparent hopelessness of obtaining what was due had tempted him to this cruel proceeding. Nothing but starvation in his own family could justify a landlord in turning a mother with a dying child out of the house. He looked at f.a.n.n.y with astonishment when she promised to pay him, but he was sceptical.

”Why don't you put back the furniture?” demanded f.a.n.n.y, impatiently.

”It's meself that would be glad to do that same,” replied he. ”Would you let me see the color of your money, miss?”

”Put the things back, and you shall have your money as soon as you have done it,” added f.a.n.n.y, moving down the street. ”I will be back in a few moments.”

The landlord looked at her, as she walked away. He was in doubt, but there was something about the girl so different from what he had been accustomed to see in young ladies of her age, that he was strongly impressed by her words. f.a.n.n.y sat down on a rock in the shade of a lone tree. Mr. O'Shane looked at her for a moment, and then decided to obey the haughty command he had received. He went to work with more energy than he had before displayed, and began to move the furniture back into the house, greatly to the surprise and delight, no doubt, of the grief-stricken mother.

f.a.n.n.y counted out a hundred dollars from the stolen bills in her pocket, and returned to the house. Mr. O'Shane had by this time completed his work, and was awaiting the result.

”They be all put back, miss,” said he, doubtfully.

”There is your money,” replied f.a.n.n.y, proudly.

Mr. O'Shane's eyes opened, and he fixed them with a gloating stare upon the bills. He counted them; there was a hundred dollars.

”G.o.d bless you, miss, for a saint as ye are!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed he, as he put the money in his pocket. ”Ye saved me from doing the worst thing I ever did in me life. I'll send the receipt to Mrs. Kent to-day;” and he walked away towards his own house.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SICK GIRL.

The last part of the interview between f.a.n.n.y and Mr. O'Shane had been witnessed by Mrs. Kent, who came out of the house when she had attended to the wants of her sick child. The dark cloud which menaced her a few moments before had rolled away, and, if the suns.h.i.+ne did not beam upon her, she was comparatively happy in having one trouble less to weigh her down. She was calm now, but the tears--they were tears of relief--still rolled down her wan and furrowed cheek.

”I have prayed for help, and help has come,” said she to her deliverer, as the harsh landlord walked away.

f.a.n.n.y could not make any reply to a statement of this kind. She was a fugitive and a wanderer; she was a thief, shunning the gaze of men, and she could not conceive of such a thing as that she had been sent as an angel of relief to the poor woman in answer to her prayers. As she thought what she was and what she had been doing, a blush of shame suffused her cheek. She was silent; there was nothing which she could say at such a moment.

”Heaven will bless you for your good, kind heart. You are an angel,”

continued Mrs. Kent.

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