Well, I do, and I can't help myself. Will you do what I want? Here, do
you think you'd like this in your possession?"

As Kathleen spoke she held out a golden sovereign in the palm of her
little hand.

"I don't want to be bribed."

"It isn't bribery really; it is paying you for giving me a great
convenience. I must go out on important business. I want to help those
who are down-trodden and distressed. Will you do what I want, Ben--will
you, dear Ben? You know I like you so much. Will you--will you?"

Of course, Ben fought against Kathleen's rather wicked suggestion; of
course in the end he yielded. When he finally got up to his attic to
thumb over his well-worn lesson-books he had Kathleen's golden sovereign
in his pocket. He took it out and looked at it; he turned it round and
round and examined it all over. He rubbed it lovingly against his
freckled cheek, held it until it got warm in the palm of his hand, and
then put it back in his pocket and jingled it against a couple of
pennies which were its only companions.

"A whole sovereign," he said to himself--"a whole sovereign, and I never
had so much as five shillings of my own in the whole course of my life.
Well, she is a little witch. I suppose Dave would beat me black and blue
for doing a thing of this sort. But how could I--how could I withstand
her?"

Supper at the Tennants' generally consisted of cold pudding, cold meat,
bread-and-butter, and a little jam when there happened to be any in the
house. It was not a particularly tempting meal, and those who ate it
required to have good, vigorous appetites. Kathleen, although she had
been brought up in a considerable amount of wasteful splendor, was
indifferent to what she ate. She soon jumped up and walked across the
little passage into the drawing-room. Ben, looking very red and
shamefaced, would not meet her eyes. Ben's face annoyed Kathleen. It did
not occur to her for a minute that he would not be faithful to her, but
she was afraid that others might notice his extraordinary and perturbed
expression. Once, too, he jingled the sovereign in his pocket; she heard
him, and wondered why David did not ask him where he had got the money.
But no remark was made, and the meal came safely to an end. Kathleen
took up the first book she could find and pretended to read.

"I shall feign sleepiness at a quarter to nine," she said to herself,
"and go upstairs. I shall be awfully polite and sweet to dear Alice. She
never