father, he was writing a letter," said Archie.

Mr. Fairfax took up the paper. This is what it said:—

"Dear Father,—The little 'uns is all well, and I've got money now to last 'em till you are out, if I'm took before, which I'm that bad and low I can't hardly creep along. I've give Polly the money to use when wanted. She's been a good girl all along. Come to the above address as soon as you are out. I done my best, father, as you told me. And now good-bye, if I'm gone.—Your loving son,

"Stephen Bennett.

"P.S.—I never believed as you did it, father, and I don't now. God will make it right, so don't fret."

The envelope lay by the letter. It was directed to—

Ambrose Bennett, No. 357,
Eastwood Jail.

Mr. Fairfax gave them both to his son. "There, Archie," he said; "read these, and see if you still think you were right."

Then he went to Stephen, and did what he could to restore him to consciousness. But he was in such a weak state that nothing seemed of any use.

"Father, I've been a suspicious brute," cried Archie, flinging down the letter. "But for my cold looks and constant spying, which I daresay he's noticed, he might have told me all this, and I might have helped him. Now he's starving and friendless. But I'll try to make up now, if it isn't too late. Do let me carry him home, father—may I?"

"No," said Mr. Fairfax; "I'll go back and order some brandy, and send for the doctor. You stay here and take care of him and the mill."

He went away, and very long did the time seem to Archie before the doctor arrived. Now he had time to think over his own unkind—nay, cruel—suspicions, founded on nothing but Stephen's shabby appearance.

"It's my way, I know, to make up my mind too quickly, and by a fellow's outside," he thought. Then, somehow, the words of the last Sunday's epistle came into his mind—"Charity thinketh no evil." He knew that charity means love.

"No," he said to himself, "I shouldn't have thought evil of him, and I certainly had no right to say what I did to father and Mr. Munster. Poor fellow! how lonely and miserable he must have been; and I might have stood his friend, if I'd only given him the chance of speaking about his troubles, instead of glaring at him as I did. Is it too late now to make up?"

Just then the doctor came in; but for a long, long time he could not restore Stephen to consciousness.

He was trying still when three o'clock struck.

"Now he is really coming to—look, Dr. Grey," cried Archie, who had watched all the doctor's efforts with breathless anxiety.

Just then Stephen gave a great sigh, and opened his eyes.

"Where am I?" he asked feebly.

"All among friends," said Archie, "and going to have a jolly time, and be nursed up, and made as strong as a horse.—Now, Dr. Grey, let's get a cab. I'll go and call one," and he bustled off.

Outside he met a disgusting sight. It was Timothy Lingard, staggering towards the mill, very much the worse for what he had been drinking.

"You can't go there; go home at once," said Archie.

"Night-watch—caretaker—said I'd be here," mumbled Timothy, trying to brush past him; and then finding Archie still stood as a hindrance in front of him, he tried to strike him—of course not knowing who it was—only he missed his aim, and fell down into the gutter.

There Archie left him, to seek a cab, which is not an easy thing to find at three o'clock in the morning. However, before long he did succeed in procuring one, and in it Stephen was conveyed to the nearest hospital.

Mr. Fairfax was just starting for his office the next morning when he was accosted by a respectable-looking working-man.

"Do I speak to Mr. Fairfax, sir?" he asked, touching his hat.

"Yes, that is my name. Can I do anything for you?"

"Would you be good enough, sir, to tell me where my son, Stephen Bennett, is? I hear he was taken ill last night."

"He's in the hospital. I'll take you—I was just going there myself," said Archie, who was with his father.

"Your son has had a hard life, I fear, in your absence," said Mr. Fairfax, glancing curiously at the stranger, who did not look at all like a man capable of crime.

"Yes, sir," he answered somewhat bitterly; "it has pleased the Almighty to send me a heavy trial. First, I lost my wife; then I was accused, along with my fellow-workers in a brick-yard, of stealing fagots. I was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and my time would have been out next week. My boy, which he's one in a thousand—though he was that weakly he was hardly fit for work—he brought the little 'uns, five of 'em, all under fourteen, to this place. 'We shan't be known at Longcross, father,' he says, 'and I'll work for 'em all till you're out.' So he come here. And yesterday they come to me in the jail, and they says, 'Bennett, we find you're innocent. The man what took the fagots, he's up and confessed, and he says as you've had nothing to do with it.' So they wrote me this paper to say I'm pardoned, as they call it, and I come away; but they couldn't give me back the three months of my life."

"No," said Mr. Fairfax; "you have suffered indeed. But I trust that even yet you may find good come out of evil, as it so often does. We have come to know and respect Stephen, and as soon as he is well he shall be moved into a comfortable house, which I have now to let, and which is at your disposal, if you like to take it. Other help, too, I hope to be able to render you."

Thus talking, they arrived at the hospital. Stephen had not made much progress, and was still alarmingly weak. Scanty food and constant anxiety had told terribly on his delicate constitution. But when he saw his father, and heard that he had been set free, and declared innocent, a new life seemed to come into him.

"I shall get well now, father," he said; "I feel I shall—only my head's so bad where the blow came that I can't think much. But that doesn't matter now; you'll look after the little 'uns. 'Twas the having all them on me, and thinking about you, that seemed to crush me down; though I knew you was innocent, father—I knew it all along. Thank God for making it clear, though. I asked Him to do it, night and day, and He's done it."

"Now, Archie, my boy," said Mr. Fairfax, as he and his son walked back together, "you see how entirely wrong you were in your hasty judgment."

"Yes, father, I do see;" and the lad's voice was full of feeling. "Stephen may never lose the effects of this time of cruel hardship. I might have been his friend, and I was his enemy instead."

"If I had listened, or allowed the foreman to listen, to your guesses, he might have been turned off altogether. It should be a lesson to you, Archie, never to injure another person's character again without absolute certainty, and even then only if it is necessary for the general good. Once gone, it is sometimes impossible to win back."

"I know—I know, father. I will try to be careful, and not so hasty."

"Don't judge merely by appearances, Archie. Above all, remember those words of the Great Teacher, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.'"

"I KNOW BEST."

"So the choir treat is fixed