Signing the Contract and What it Cost

These two were kept pretty steadily employed upon the few dresses of customers still on hand, and in preparing Miss Sharp’s wardrobe for another year at boarding-school.

One morning Floy, who had been left for an hour or more sole occupant of the work-room, was startled by the sudden entrance of Annie in a state bordering on distraction.

“Oh, what shall I do! what shall I do!” she cried, wringing her hands and pacing the floor to and fro with rapid steps, while great tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, Miss Kemper, can you help me?”

“What is it, Annie?” Floy asked, stopping the machine which she was running at the moment, and turning upon the girl a look of mingled surprise and pity. “Stop crying and tell me, and I will certainly help you if I can. Have you offended Mrs. Sharp?”

“Oh, yes, and worse than that: she says I’ve robbed her; but oh, I haven’t! I wouldn’t steal a pin from anybody. But she won’t believe a word I say, and she says if I don’t find the five dollars pretty quick she’ll have me arrested and taken to prison; and Lucian wants to go off for a policeman right away. Oh dear, oh dear!”

The girl’s distress and agitation were so great that Floy had some difficulty in coming to a clear understanding of her trouble; but at length, by dint of soothing and questioning, she learned the facts, which were these:

Annie had been sent to carry home some finished work, taking with her a receipted bill for thirty dollars, her instructions being not to leave it unless it was paid.

The woman, a Mrs. Collins, a new customer, handed her twenty-five dollars, saying that she would pay the rest at another time; and the girl, from stupidity, carelessness, or bashfulness, allowed her to retain the bill.

Mrs. Sharp sent her back for it, but the woman refused to give it up, and, to the astonishment and dismay of the poor child, stoutly asserted that she had paid the whole.

And now Mrs. Sharp accused Annie of retaining the missing sum, and with much anger and indignation declared that she would send her to prison unless she made good the loss within an hour.

“Oh, Miss Kemper,” sobbed the girl in conclusion, “I haven’t a dollar or a friend in the world! and if I lose my character what will become of me? Nobody’ll trust me, and I can’t get work, and I’ll just have to starve.”

“I’m very sorry for you,” said Floy; “but trust in the Lord, and He will help you; and if you are innocent, He will bring it to light some day.”

“If I am innocent! oh, Miss Floy,” sobbed the girl, “you don’t think me a thief, do you?”

“No, Annie, I don’t, if that’s any comfort to you, poor child!”

“I’m glad of that!” Annie said, a gleam of pleasure flitting over her tear-swollen face, then burst out again, “But oh, what shall I do? Oh, if I only had five dollars! Miss Floy, can you lend it to me? I’ll pay it back some day, and never, never forget to ask God to bless you for your kindness.”

“I would if I could, Annie, but I haven’t half that sum,” Floy was beginning to say, when a sudden recollection stopped her.

In the old pocket-book found upon Mr. Kemper’s person after his death, and kept by her as a sacred relic, she had safely stowed away the golden half-eagle he had given her but a few moments before the awful accident that had made her an almost penniless orphan.

For herself she would not have spent it unless reduced to the last extremity of want; but her noble, generous heart could not withstand Annie’s appeal.

“Wait here a moment; I will see,” she said in tremulous tones, and hurried from the room.

Up to her own she ran, locked herself in, opened her trunk, and, diving to the bottom, drew forth the old, worn, faded pocket-book.

For a moment she held it lovingly in her hand, hot tears rushing to her eyes as she thought of that terrible scene enacted scarce a year ago.

But the present was no time for the indulgence of grief. She undid the clasp and looked for the treasure she had come to seek.

Where was it? with fingers and eyes she examined each division, yet without success. Had she been robbed? A sudden pang shot through her heart at the thought.

But oh no, that could not be! The lining was much torn, and the coin had doubtless slipped in between it and the outside.

She ran her fingers in and felt it there, and – something else: a memorandum or bill probably. She pulled at it, tore the lining a little more, and finally drew out a bit of folded paper that looked like a leaf torn from a note-book.

Her heart gave a wild throb, and in her excitement the paper slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor. She stooped and clutched it hastily, eagerly, as if she feared it would even yet escape her; then, with a strong effort at composure, opened out the folds with her trembling fingers.

One glance told her that it was in very truth the long-sought deed of gift.

She did not wait to read it in detail, but scanned the lines hurriedly. The name – her mother’s name and her own – was what she sought; and there it was – “Ethel Farnese” – perfectly legible, though evidently written with unsteady fingers, as of one in great agitation of mind.

“Ethel Farnese!” repeated Floy half aloud, letting the paper fall into her lap and clasping her hands together over it, while with a far-off look in her lustrous eyes she gazed into space. “Ethel Farnese! and that is who I am; who she was when she gave me to them! Ethel Farnese! I seem to be not myself at all, but somebody else. How strange it all is! just like a story or a dream.” And for a moment she sat with her head upon her hand, overcome by a curious sense of loss and bewilderment. Was she the same girl who had come into that room ten minutes ago?

Then a thought struck her. “The will! might it not have shared the hiding-place of the deed? Oh, what joy if she could but find that!”

She caught up the pocket-book again, the color coming and going in her cheeks, her heart beating so fast she could hardly breathe, and with remorseless fingers tore it apart till not a fold or crevice remained unexplored; but alas! without any further discovery.

“Ah, he never made it!” she sighed sadly to herself, as she had done months before.

She restored the pocket-book to its place, with the deed of gift safely bestowed inside, locked her trunk, and with the gold piece in her hand returned to the work-room.

Annie, pacing to and fro with agitated steps, was still its only occupant. “Oh, I thought you’d never come!” she cried, stopping in her walk and turning eagerly to Floy. “Have you got the money for me? What’s the matter? you look as if something had happened.”

“I have the money – a five-dollar gold piece which I value so highly as a keepsake that I would not spend it for myself unless I were in absolute danger of starvation,” Floy said, answering the first query, ignoring the other; “still I will lend it to you if necessary to save you from arrest. But, Annie, wouldn’t your paying the money to Mrs. Sharp look like an acknowledgment that you had really kept it back, as she says?”

“I don’t know; maybe it would,” sobbed Annie, “but she’ll send me to jail if I don’t. I don’t like to take your keepsake either; but oh dear, oh dear! what shall I do?”

At that moment Mrs. Sharp came hastily into the room. She was a quick-tempered woman, but not hard-hearted, and, her anger having had time to cool, began now to relent toward the friendless girl who had offended her. Still she did not like to retreat from the position she had taken.

“Well, Annie, what are you going to do?” she asked in a tone whose mildness surprised the child. “I hope you’ve concluded to give up the money you’ve held back from me. You may as well, for it won’t do you any good to keep it.”

“Oh, I would if I had it!” sobbed Annie, “but that woman never gave me a cent more than what I handed to you; and if you don’t believe me you can search me and my trunk.”

“Humph! there are other places where you could hide it,” was the quick, sarcastic rejoinder.

“Miss Kemper,” turning to Floy, “what do you think of this business?”

“I cannot believe that Annie would rob you, Mrs. Sharp, though she did wrong in leaving the bill contrary to directions, and therefore might in strict justice be required to make good your loss,” said Floy. “And I think she is willing to do it if it were in her power; but you know she has no money, and no way of earning any just now.”

“Well, she soon will be getting wages,” said Mrs. Sharp meditatively, “and if she’ll agree that I shall keep the first five dollars – ”

“Oh, I will, I will!” interrupted Annie, catching eagerly at the suggestion and clasping her hands in passionate entreaty, “indeed I will, if you’ll only believe I didn’t take it, and let me stay on here! And I’ll never forget your kindness.”

Mrs. Sharp gave a somewhat ungracious consent that it should be so; and hearing a customer enter the store, hurried back to wait upon her, while the relieved Annie dried her eyes and took up the work she had dropped when sent upon the unfortunate errand.

That she was spared the parting with her prized souvenir was certainly a pleasure and relief to Floy, but the remembrance of that was soon lost in the excitement of her recent discovery; her thoughts were full of it, and with joy she said to herself, “Here is another step taken toward the finding of my mother. I am more convinced than ever that she still lives, and that the good God who has helped me thus far will finally guide me to her; for now, knowing the name she once bore, I can advertise in a way much more likely to attract her attention.”

But here a great obstacle – the want of money – presented itself, and the girl’s busy brain set to work to contrive ways and means to earn the needful funds.

The treasured half-eagle would not go very far, and it, she quickly decided, must be kept as a reserve in case of dire necessity.

The question arose in her mind whether she should now drop her adopted name and resume that which was hers by right of birth.

But such a course would involve explanations and confidences which she did not care to give to those about her – these people who would feel no interest in them or in her but that of idle curiosity. Hetty was the only member of the family who knew, or had ever shown any desire to know, anything of Floy’s history or hopes, and our heroine quickly decided that until Hetty returned this secret should be all her own.