Harley Seabrooke was not hard-hearted, although he was determined
that the two boys should make full restitution, and justly so, and he
could not but feel sorry for Percy when these fits of despair
overtook him.
"Neville," he said to him one day, "have you written to your parents
about this matter?"
"To my father and mother! oh, no!" answered Percy, looking dismayed
at the bare idea of such a thing; "Oh, no, of course not. How could
I?"
"It seems to me," said Harley, eying the boy curiously, "that such a
thing is the most natural course when one is in such a difficulty.
Certainly it must involve confession, but they would be the most
lenient and tender judges one could have. Why not make a clean breast
of it, Percy, and have it over? You hardly, I suppose, can obtain
such a sum of money except by application to them; or have you some
other friend who will help you?"
"I have--I did--I mean I will," stammered Percy. "I have asked
and--and--I know I must have it somehow."
He looked so utterly depressed and forlorn that Harley's heart was
moved for him.
"If I were rich, Percy," he said, "if I could in any way afford it, I
would not insist upon such early payment of my loss; but it is only
just that you should make it good. You did not know what you were
doing, it is true, the extent of the injury to me; but you had
suffered yourself to be tempted into wrong by a boy much worse than
yourself, and you meant to play me a sorry trick, which has recoiled
upon yourself.
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