ll together, sir," she said to the teller.

He obeyed, and pushed the pile towards Mrs Gaff, who surveyed it first
with unmixed delight; but gradually her face was clouded with a look of
concern as she thought of the counting of it.

If the counting of the gold was terrible to her, the counting of the
silver was absolutely appalling, for the latter, consisting as it did of
half-crowns, shillings, and sixpences, numbered nearly five hundred
pieces.

The poor woman applied herself to the task with commendable energy, but
in ten minutes she perceived that the thing was utterly beyond her
powers, so she suddenly exclaimed to Tottie, who stood looking on with
tears in her eyes,--"Surely the elderly teller must be an honest man,
and would never cheat me;" having come to which conclusion she swept the
silver into the bag previously prepared for it, and consigned that to
the basket which was the inseparable companion of her left arm.
Thereafter she left the bank and hastened to a grocer in the town with
whom she was acquainted, and from whom she obtained brown paper and
twine with which she made the money up into a parcel. Her next act was
to purchase a new bonnet-box, which she presented to Miss Peppy with
many earnest protestations that she would have got a better if she
could, but a better was not to be had in town for love or money.

Having executed all her commissions, Mrs Gaff returned to Cove and
spent an hour or two with Tottie in the four-poster--not by any means
because she was lazy, but because it afforded her peculiar and
inexpressible pleasure to stare at the damask curtains and wonder how
Gaff would like it, and think of the surprise that he would receive on
first beholding _such_ a bed. So anxious did the good woman become in
her desire to make the most of the new bed, that she once or twice
contemplated the propriety of Stephen and herself, and the Bu'ster and
Tottie, spending the first night, "after their return," all together in
it, but on mature consideration she dismissed the idea as untenable.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

MISS PEPPY UNDERTAKES A JOURNEY.

The scene is changed now to the railway station at Wreckumoft, where
there is the usual amount of bustle and noise. The engines are
shrieking and snorting as if nothing on earth could relieve their
feelings but bursting. Bells are ringing; porters are hurrying to and
fro with luggage on trucks, to the risk of passengers' shins and toes;
men, wome