lings. You'd like to trim your hat to match
that handsome blouse, wouldn't you?"

Susy's eyes could not help dancing.

"Five shillings all to yourself; and I won't press your mother about the
installment which was due to me yesterday. I'll manage without it
somehow. But I want to see that beautiful young lady in my cottage, and
you will get the money when you bring her. That's all. You are a queer
little girl, and not altogether to my taste, but you are no fool."

Susy stood silent. She put her hand on the moth-eaten cushion of the old
bath-chair, bent forward, and looked into Mrs. Church's face.

"Will you take back the words you said?"

"Will I take back what?"

"If not the words, at least the thought? Will you say that you know that
I got this blouse honestly?"

"Oh, yes, child! I'd quite forgotten all about it. Now just see that you
do what I want; and the sooner the better, you understand. And, oh,
Susy, mum's the word with regard to me being well off. I ain't, I can
tell you; I am quite a poor body. But I could do a kindness to you and
your mother if--if certain things were to come to pass. Now that's about
all.--Pull away, Tom, my boy. I have a rosy apple which shall find its
way into your pocket if you take me home in double-quick time."

Tom pulled with a will; the little bath-chair creaked and groaned, and
Mrs. Church nodded her wise old head and she was carried over the
country roads.

Meanwhile Susy entered the house with her mother.

"What a blessing," said Mrs. Hopkins, "that that pretty young lady
happened to call! I never saw such a change in any one as what took
place in your aunt after she had seen her."

"Well, mother, you know what it is all about," said Susy. "Aunt Church
wants to get into one of those almshouses."

"Just like her--stingy old thing!" said Mrs. Hopkins.

"I don't want her to get in, I can tell you, mother; and when Kathleen
and I were out I told Kathleen that she was a great deal too rich. She
asked me what her means were, and I said I believed she has three
hundred pounds put by. Now, mother, don't you call that riches?"

"Three hundred pounds!" said Mrs. Hopkins. "That depends, child. To some
it is wealth; to others it is a decent competence; to others, again, it
is poverty."

"Kathleen didn't think much of it, mother."

"Well," said Mrs. Hopkins, "I have notions in my head. Maybe this very
thing can be turned to good for us; there's no saying. I think if your
a