the one to whom
she had been directed by the head's nose.

"Now, sir," said Mrs Gaff, (she could not say "young man" this time,
for the teller was an elderly gentleman), "I hope ye'll pay me the money
without any more worrittin' of me. I'm sure ye might ha' done it at
once without shovin' about a poor ignorant woman like me."

Having appealed to the teller's feelings in this last observation, Mrs
Gaff's own feelings were slightly affected, and she whimpered a little.
Tottie, being violently sympathetic, at once began to weep silently.

"How would you like to have it, my good woman?" asked the teller kindly.

"Eh?" exclaimed Mrs Gaff.

"Would you like to have it in notes or gold?" said the teller.

"In goold, of course, sir."

Tottie here glanced upwards through her tears. Observing that her
mother had ceased to whimper, and was gazing in undisguised admiration
at the proceedings of the teller, she turned her eyes in his direction,
and forgot to cry any more.

The teller was shovelling golden sovereigns into a pair of scales with a
brass shovel as coolly as if he were a grocer's boy scooping out raw
sugar. Having weighed the glittering pile, he threw them carelessly out
of the scale into the brass shovel, and shot them at Mrs Gaff, who
suddenly thrust her ample bosom against the counter, under the
impression that the coins were about to be scattered on the floor. She
was mistaken. They were checked in their career by a ledge, and lay
before her unbelieving eyes in a glittering mass.

Suddenly she looked at the teller with an expression of severe reproof.

"You've forgot to count 'em, sir."

"You'll find them all right," replied the teller, with a laugh.

Thereupon Mrs Gaff, in an extremely unbelieving state of mind, began to
count the gold pieces one by one into a little cotton bag which had been
prepared by her for this very purpose, and which Tottie held open with
both hands. In ten minutes, after much care and many sighs, she counted
it all, and found that there were two sovereigns too many, which she
offered to return to the teller with a triumphant air, but that
incredulous man smiled benignantly, and advised her to count it again.
She did count it again, and found that there were four pieces too few.
Whereupon she retired with the bag to a side table, and, in a state of
profuse perspiration, began to count it over a third time with
deliberate care.

Tottie watched and checked each piece like a