heavy laden, heaven was, and has been lost. But Jamie never thought his soul immortal until his love for Mercedes came into it; perhaps not consciously now. Such thoughts would have seemed to him childish. How, then, did Jamie live? For no man can live quite without hope, as we believe,—hope of some event, some end of suffering, at least of some worthier act.
With Jamie it was the hope of restitution. He wished to leave behind him, as the score of his life, that he had been true to his employer and had loved his little ward. And if the time could ever come when he could do more for her, it would not be until his theft was made good, and his hands were free, as his heart, to serve her again. For the one thing that Jamie stood for was integrity; that was all the little story of his life.
His salary was eighteen hundred dollars; at the end of the first year after his theft he had spent a hundred and fifty. Then he asked for two days' leave of absence, and went to New York, where he exchanged sixteen hundred and forty dollars for Spanish gold pieces. A less old-fashioned man would have invested
