" said Mrs Polsue with her
finest satirical air, "it was considerate of you to put on your
bonnet and lose no time in telling me. . . . But how long is it since
we started 'Mister'-ing Nanjivell in this way?"

Miss Oliver's face grew crimson. "It seems to me that now he has
come into money--and being always of good family, as everybody
knows--" She hesitated and came to a halt. Her friend's eyes were
fixed on her, and with an expression not unlike a lazy cat's.

"Oho!" thought Mrs Polsue to herself, and for just a moment her frame
shook with a dry inward spasm; but not a muscle of her face twitched.
Aloud she said: "Well, in your place I shouldn't be so hot, at short
notice, to stand up for a man who on your own showing is a corrupter
of children's minds. Knowing what I've told you of the relations
between this Nanjivell and Mrs Penhaligon, and catching this
Penhaligon child with a gold coin in his hand, and hearing from his
own confession that the man gave it to him, even _you_ might have
drawn some conclusion, I'd have thought."

"I declare, Mary-Martha, I wouldn't think so uncharitably of folks as
you do, not if I was paid for it. You're annoyed--that's what you
are--because you got Mr--because you got Nanjivell watched for a
German spy, and now I've proved you're wrong and you can't wriggle
out of _that!_"

"Your godfather and godmothers did very well for you at your baptism,
Charity Oliver. Prophets they must have been. . . . But just you
take a chair and compose yourself and listen to me. A minute ago you
complained that I took you up before you were down. Well, I'll
improve on that by taking you down before you're up--or up so far as
you think yourself. Answer me. This is a piece of gold, eh?"

"Why, of course. That's why I brought it to you."

"What kind of a piece of gold?"

"A guinea-piece. My father used to wear one on his watch-chain, and
I recognised the likeness at once."

"Quite so. Now when your father happened to earn a sovereign, did he
go and hang it on his watch-chain?"

"What a silly question!"

"It isn't at all a silly question. . . . Tell me how many sovereigns
you've seen in your life, and how many guineas?"

"O-oh! . . . I think I see what you mean-"

"I congratulate you, I'm sure! Now, I won't swear, but I'm morally
certain that guineas haven't been what they call in circulation for
years and years and years."

"You're always seeing them in subscription lists," Mi