ot back to his window seat, and held
out his long, shapely hand.

She shook herself, put up one hand to her hair, and took a shilling from
her pocket with the other.

"Tiresome boy!" she exclaimed. "If I live to be a hundred, I shall never
know why boys were invented."

"There are lots of other things, simpler things, that you will never
know, though you live to be a Methuselah, my dear Nell," he said; "one
of them being that twenty-seven and eight do not make thirty-nine."

"Thirty-nine? Why, of course not; thirty-five!" she retorted. "That's
where I was wrong. Dick, you are a beast. There's the book, Molly, and
there's the money----Oh, give me back that shilling, Dick; I want it!
I've only just got enough. Give it me back at once; you shall have it
again, I swear--I mean, I promise."

"Simple child!" he murmured sweetly. "So young, so simple! She really
thinks I shall give it to her! Such innocence is indeed touching! Excuse
these tears. It will soon pass!"

He mopped his eyes with his handkerchief, as if overcome by emotion, and
the exasperated Nell looked at him as if she meant another fight; but
she resisted the temptation, and, with a shrug of her shoulders, pushed
the book and money toward the patient and unmoved Molly.

"There you are, Molly, all but the shilling. Tell him to add that to the
next account."

"Yes, miss. And the missis' chocklut; it's just the time?"

Nell glanced at the clock.

"So it is! There'll be a row. It's all your fault, Dick. Why don't you
go for a sail, or shrimping, or something? A boy's always a nuisance in
the house. I'll come at once, Molly. There!" she exclaimed, as a woman's
thin voice was heard calling in a languid and injured tone:

"Molly!"

"''Twas the voice of the sluggard----'" Dick began to quote; but Nell,
with a hissed "Hush! she'll hear you!" ran out, struggling with her
laughter. Five minutes later, she went up the stairs with a salver on
which were a dainty chocolate service and a plate of thin bread and
butter, and entering the best bedroom of the cottage, carried the salver
to a faded-looking woman who, in a short dressing jacket of dingy pink,
sat up in the bed.

She was Mrs. Lorton, the stepmother of the boy and girl. She had been
pretty once, and had not forgotten the fact--it is on the cards that she
thought herself pretty still, though the weak face was thin and hollow,
the once bright eyes dim and querulous, the lips drawn into a
dissatisfied cu