t it would be a crying shame and slight if she and Isaac did not
have the guardianship of the money. She thirsted, perhaps, to make an
impression upon public opinion in the village, which, as she
instinctively realised, held her cheaply. And then, of course, there
was the secret thought of John's death, and what might come of it.
John had always loudly proclaimed that he meant to spend his money, and
not leave it behind him. But the instinct of saving, once formed, is
strong. John, too, might die sooner than he thought--and she and Isaac
had children.

She had come up, indeed, that afternoon, haunted by a passionate desire
to get the money into her hands; yet the mere sordidness of
"expectations" counted for less in the matter than one would suppose.
Vanity, a vague wish to ingratiate herself with her uncle, to avoid a
slight--these were, on the whole, her strongest motives. At any rate,
when he had once asked her the momentous question, she knew well what
to say to him.

"Well, if you arst me," she said hastily, "of course _we_ think as it's
only nateral you should leave it with Isaac an' me, as is your own kith
and kin. But we wasn't goin' to say nothin'; we didn't want to be
pushin' of ourselves forward."

John rose to his feet. He was in his shirt-sleeves, which were rolled
up. He pulled them down, put on his coat, an air of crisis on his fat
face.

"Where 'ud you put it?" he said.

"Yer know that cupboard by the top of the stairs? It 'ud stand there
easy. And the cupboard's got a good lock to it; but we'd 'ave it seen
to, to make sure."

She looked up at him eagerly. She longed to feel herself trusted and
important. Her self-love was too often mortified in these respects.

John fumbled round his neck for the bit of black cord on which he kept
two keys--the key of his room while he was away and the key of the box
itself.

"Well, let's get done with it," he said. "I'm off to-morrer mornin',
six o'clock. You go and get Isaac to come down."

"I'll run," said Bessie, catching up her shawl and throwing it over her
head. "He wor just finishin' his tea."

And she whirled out of the cottage, running up the steep road behind it
as fast as she could. John was vaguely displeased by her excitement;
but the die was cast. He went to make his arrangements.

Bessie ran till she was out of breath. When she reached her own house,
a cottage in a side lane above the Bolderfields' cottage and
overlooking