nto his own
room. Ruby rose and followed.

"You haven't any----"

The captain stopped, stroked his bald head, and looked perplexed.

"Well, uncle?"

"Well, nephy, you haven't--in short, have ye got any money about you,
lad?"

"Money? yes, a _little_; but why do you ask?"

"Well, the fact is, that your poor mother is hard up just now," said
the captain earnestly, "an' I've given her the last penny I have o'
my own; but she's quite----"

Ruby interrupted his uncle at this point with a boisterous laugh. At
the same time he flung open the door and dragged the old man with
gentle violence back to the kitchen.

"Come here, uncle."

"But, avast! nephy, I haven't told ye all yet."

"Oh! don't bother me with such trifles just now," cried Ruby,
thrusting his uncle into a chair and resuming his own seat at his
mother's side; "we'll speak of that at some other time; meanwhile let
me talk to mother.

"Minnie, dear," he continued, "who keeps the cash here; you or
mother?"

"Well, we keep it between us," said Minnie, smiling; "your mother
keeps it in her drawer and gives me the key when I want any, and I
keep an account of it."

"Ah! well, mother, I have a favour to ask of you before I go."

"Well, Ruby?"

"It is that you will take care of my cash for me. I have got a
goodish lot of it, and find it rather heavy to carry in my
pockets--so, hold your apron steady and I'll give it to you."

Saying this he began to empty handful after handful of coppers into
the old woman's apron; then, remarking that "that was all the
browns", he began to place handful after handful of shillings and
sixpences on the top of the pile until the copper was hid by silver.

The old lady, as usual when surprised, became speechless; the captain
smiled and Minnie laughed, but when Ruby put his hand into another
pocket and began to draw forth golden sovereigns, and pour them into
his mother's lap, the captain became supremely amazed, the old woman
laughed, and,--so strangely contradictory and unaccountable is human
nature,--Minnie began to cry.

Poor girl! the tax upon her strength had been heavier than anyone
knew, heavier than she could bear, and the sorrow of knowing, as she
had come to know, that it was all in vain, and that her utmost
efforts had failed to "keep the wolf from the door", had almost
broken her down. Little wonder, then, that the sight of sudden and
ample relief upset her altogether.

But her tears, being tears of joy