“Keep it,” Mrs. Scott answered, “and if he does not do his best, it is forfeited.  I think he will.”

Poor Collin!  Perhaps in all the course of his troubles he had known no sharper moment than that.  He looked around the group.  Several of the stable-hands had gathered, Sim Miles, with a broadly smiling face, being among them.

The tears sprung to Collin’s honest blue eyes.  Nor was he ashamed of them.

“I will do my best,” was all he could say.

“All right; come around to-morrow, Spencer,” said Mr. Conover, bluffly, seeing that the scene threatened to be rather a moving one, and he went back to his business.

CHAPTER XX.

An Important Letter.

His visitors turned away.

Rosalie, whose triumph was supreme, could not wholly control herself.  She gave an occasional hop as they went.

Trudy’s face shone, and her eyes were starry.  As for Collin, he felt that silence was best.

“Go and tell your mother, Collin,” Trudy whispered.  “You won’t be afraid to see her now.”

“I’m going there,” Collin answered—­they stood at the corner of his street.  “I’ll go; and all I can say is, that I shan’t ever forget what you’ve all done for me.  You’ve saved me—­that’s what.  I don’t know what would have become of me.  And you’ll never be sorry for it.”

And, choking somewhat, Collin Spencer turned down the street to his mother’s home.

It seemed to Trudy that it was the strangest piece of good fortune in the world which had taken place.  After all the dark worry her true young heart had known, she could hardly believe it.  And yet a stranger thing was to happen then and there.

As they walked on, Trudy’s eyes turned down the street and fixed themselves upon a figure coming rapidly towards them, or as rapidly as was possible.  The figure, which was small and bent in the shoulders, limped.  Rosalie saw it at the same instant.

“See! who is that?” she asked, in wonder.

“It’s Ichabod,” said Trudy—­“why, it’s Ichabod!  And I left him sick abed.  Whatever is the matter?”

Ichabod came hurriedly limping on.  It became plain that he had seen them and was hastening to reach them; and Trudy ran forward.

“Why, Ichabod,” she cried, in remonstrance, “if you didn’t get up!  Were you able?  No; see how tired you are!”

Certainly Ichabod was.  He leaned against the fence a minute, and then, giving it up, sat down on the grass beside it, pulling off his old hat and fanning himself.

Something else dawned upon Trudy.  Ichabod was excited.  That indeed seemed to be the greater cause of his exhaustion, for he sat blinking up at Trudy in a peculiar manner and tried vainly to speak.

Mrs. Scott and Rosalie had come up, and paused.  Too courteous to smile, they looked their perplexity.

“What is the matter, Ichabod?” said Trudy, again.  She began to feel some alarm.  “What made you get up?  What have you been doing?”