Johnny Ludlow, Fifth Series

“Dear Mrs. Everty,

“I have just received your note. I am sorry that I cannot drive you out to-day—and fear that I shall not be able to do so at all. Our friends, who are staying here, have to receive the best part of my leisure time.

“Faithfully yours,“J. Todhetley.”

And I knew by the contents of the note, by its very wording even, that the crisis was past, and Tod saved.

“Thank you, Johnny! Perhaps you’ll read your own letters another time. That’s mine.”

He had come out of his room with the envelopes and sealing-wax.

“I beg your pardon, Tod. I thought it was a message you had left for me, seeing it lie open.”

“You’ve read it, I suppose?”

“Yes, or just as good. My eyes seemed to take it all in at once; and I am as glad as though I had had a purse of gold given to me.”

“Well, it’s no use trying to fight against a stream,” said he, as he folded the note. “And if I had known the truth about the emeralds, why—there’d have been no bother at all.”

“Putting the emeralds out of the question, she is not a nice person to know, Tod. And there’s no telling what might have come of it.”

“I suppose not. When the two paths, down-hill and up-hill, cross each other, as Brandon put it, and the one is pleasant and the other is not, one has to do a bit of battle with one’s self in choosing the right.”

And something in his face told me that in the intervening day and nights, he had battled with himself as few can battle; fought strenuously with the evil, striven hard for the good, and come out a conqueror.

“It has cost you pain.”

“Somewhat, Johnny. There are few good things in the way of duty but what do cost man pain—as it seems to me. The world and a safe conscience will give us back our recompense.”

“And heaven too, Tod.”

“Ay, lad; and heaven.”

THE END

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Christina G. Rossetti.