“Yes, it shall go to him,” she muttered, folding the slip of paper around the letter; “such men deserve stabbing to the heart. It shall go, but I must have a copy if I have to sit up till morning to write it. If that lady is what I think, it will bring in money. Oh, yes! I will keep a copy of this letter; poor thing! poor thing! I wish it had been the other. After all, shall I give the copy to that old Frenchwoman? No, no; she haggles;—I will take it to the other.” After this, Kelly gave herself up to such deep thought that she remained full half an hour sitting upon that straw bed, gathering up her knees with both hands, and ruminating on the things she had found; over and over again, she counted the probabilities of making this discovery valuable to herself. How came that book there, hid away in the straw bed of a hospital? Had Mrs. Judson given it to the girl, or had she stolen it from the person to whom it had been presented by this proud lady? It was no uncommon thing for the inmates of that institution to have prayer-books given by ladies as lofty in position as Mrs. Judson, but those books were cheap things from the Bible-House, printed on paltry paper, and bound in spotted leather that made the fingers shrink from touching it. Plenty of such poverty-stricken books were lying about in the wards all the time; but this was a very different affair. The book was almost new, the velvet fresh and bright as the sunny side of a plum. The clasp seemed to be of pure gold, and the paper was thick, smooth, and of a rich creamy white that met the touch like satin. These ladies did not write their names, and call the paupers “dear friends” when they distributed their pious offerings to the inmates of the hospital. Such was the burden of Jane Kelly’s thoughts, as she sat with her eyes on the ground, and her feet half buried in the refuse straw just emptied from the bed. She got up at last, folded the book and letter in an old pocket-handkerchief, and went to work again, still thoughtful, and revolving something in her mind. “If the girl stole it,” she said, talking to herself, as she sometimes did when no one was by to listen,—“if she stole it, why, then, the lady will be glad to get it back again, and no harm done, or good, either, except it may be a dollar-bill or so on my side of the reckoning. If it really belonged to the poor creature, and, after all, she looked and talked like a lady, this rich madam must have known her well, and there is something at the bottom of it all which may bring lots of dollar-bills. At any rate, there’s no harm in trying. That letter gives me courage. I’ll try it, anyhow.”