ng yellow
half-sovereign!

A strange change came over Mott's face.

"Nurse," he cried, "do you see that? What does that mean?"

Nurse hastened up to where he was standing; she stared for a moment in
puzzled astonishment at the spot on the carpet to which the toe of
Maurice's boot was pointing, then she stooped down slowly and picked up
the coin, still without speaking.

"Well, nurse," said Maurice, impatiently, "what do you think of that?"

"My half-sovereign," said nurse, as if hardly believing what she saw.

"Of course it's your half-sovereign," said Mott, "it's as plain as a
pike-staff. But how did it come there, that's the question?"

Nurse looked at Carrots with puzzled perplexity. "He couldn't have
known," she said in a low voice, too low for Carrots to hear. He was
still sitting on the floor sobbing, and through his sobs was to be heard
now and then the melancholy cry, "My secret, oh, my poor secret."

"You hear what he says," said Maurice; "what does his 'secret' mean but
that he sneaked into your drawer and took the half-sovereign, and now
doesn't like being found out. I'm ashamed to have him for my brother,
that I am, the little cad!"

"But he couldn't have understood," said nurse, at a loss how otherwise
to defend her little boy. "I'm not even sure that he rightly knew of my
losing it, and he might have taken it, meaning no harm, not knowing what
it was, indeed, very likely."

"Rubbish," said Maurice. "A child that is going without sugar to get
money instead, must be old enough to understand something about what
money is."

"But that was _my_ plan; it wasn't Carrots that thought of it at all,"
said Floss, who all this time had stood by, frightened and distressed,
not knowing what to say.

"Hold your tongue, Floss," said Maurice, roughly; and Floss subsided.
"Carrots," he continued, turning to his brother, "leave off crying this
minute, and listen to me. Who put this piece of money into your
paint-box?"

"I did my own self," said Carrots.

"What for?"

"To keep it a secret for Floss," sobbed Carrots.

Maurice turned triumphantly to nurse.

"There," he said, "you see! And," he continued to Carrots again, "you
took it out of nurse's drawer--out of a little paper packet?"

"No," said Carrots, "I didn't. I didn't know it was nurse's."

"You didn't know nurse had lost a half-sovereign!" exclaimed Mott,
"Carrots, how dare you say so?"

"Yes," said Carrots, looking so puzzled, that for a mom