r mud at a child!"

The word drummed in the boy's ears. What did it mean? What was the
sneer in it? "Brat!" "cry-baby," "tell-tale," "story-teller," these
were opprobrious words, to be resented in their degree; and all but the
first covered accusations which not only must never be deserved, but
obliged a gentleman, however young, to show fight. But "bastard"?

He felt that, whatever it meant, somehow it was worse than any; that
honour called for the annihilation of the man that dared speak it; that
there was weakness, perhaps even poltroonery, in merely walking away.
If only he knew what the word meant!

He came to a halt opposite the drug store. He had once heard Dr.
Lamerton, the apothecary at home, described as a "well-to-do" man.
The phrase stuck in his small brain, and he connected the sale of drugs
with wealth. (How, he reasoned, could any one be tempted to sell wares
so nasty unless by prodigious profit?) He felt sure the drug-seller
would be able to change the guinea for him, and walked in boldly.
His ears were tingling, and he felt a call to assert himself.

There was a single customer in the store--a girl. With some surprise he
recognised her for the girl who had beaten the flame out of the curtain.

She stood with her back to the doorway and a little sidewise by the
counter, from behind which the drug-seller--a burly fellow in a suit of
black--looked down on her doubtfully, rubbing his shaven chin while he
glanced from her to something he held in his open palm.

"I'm askin' you," he said, "how you came by it?"

"It was given to me," the girl answered.

"That's a likely tale! Folks don't give money like this to a girl in
your position; unless--"

Here the man paused.

"Is it a great deal of money?" she asked. There was astonishment in her
voice, and a kind of suppressed eagerness.

"Oh, come now--that's too innocent by half! A guinea-piece is a
guinea-piece, and a guinea is twenty-one shillings; and twenty-one
shillings, likely enough, is more'n you'll earn in a year outside o'
your keep. Who gave it ye?"

"A gentleman--the Collector--at the Inn just now.

"Ho!" said the drug-seller, with a world of meaning.

"But if," she went on, "it is worth so much as you say, there must be
some mistake. Give it back to me, please. I am sorry for troubling
you." She took a small, round parcel from her pocket, laid it on the
counter, and held out her hand for the coin.

The drug-seller eye