"But it really is very heavy. I wonder you are not afraid of thieves coming to carry it off at night."
"Well, Mr. John, I was rather nervous now and then. There have been very odd noises at night, and though Betty says it's the mice, I can't always quite believe it. I always hide the box when I go out, and now and then I forget where I put it; and, oh, dear! what a search we had the other day! I was in such a fright, and where do you think it was? Why, behind the shavings in the fireplace. Wasn't it a capital place? No thief would have dreamt of looking there."
"It's a good thing that you are going to empty it to-day, or I might have been tempted to play burglar to-night."
"Well, you see, Mr. John, it's not really so valuable as you might think, for it's chiefly pence and a good sprinkling of farthings, and they don't come up to much of a sum. You see I have been obliged to take a little here and a little there, not being rich, Mr. John, or having much to spare. One thing I always put in, 'Your change, with thanks;' don't you know those pretty little envelopes that they put pence in at Knight's and Jones's and one or two other places, with 'Your change, with thanks,' in mauve on the back? I always took that for my box, and I felt quite pleased when they had not a threepenny bit, so that I got more pence. And then, when the butcher's book came to five and sixpence half penny, Mr. Barker often says, 'Never mind the halfpenny, Miss Toosey,' and I put it into my box; and sometimes I get a halfpenny on the washing. Of course it seems very little, but it all helps. And then I fine myself. I got a good deal that way. A halfpenny if I lose my spectacles. A penny if I go to sleep in church; yes, Mr. John, I'm sorry to say I do drop off now and then. I know it's very wrong, but it's wonderful how it cures you of such habits if you have to pay for them; I don't lose my spectacles half so often as I used to, indeed I feel quite vexed sometimes that I don't get more fines; but I don't think it fair to lose them on purpose. I might save a good deal more if it wasn't for Betty. She's a good girl and honest, and much attached to me; but she's very obstinate and wrong-headed. The fuss that girl made about my letting the fire out now and then of an afternoon, for the winter has been mild, Mr. John, and coals such a price! After I'd done it once or twice, she found out it was not an accident, and she would come bouncing in and put on coals every half-hour, till there was a fire fit to roast an ox, and once she gave warning because I did not take a second helping at dinner. But there's one thing I can do without another year, which no one can object to, and that is my sitting in church. The free seats are so comfortable that it really would be a change for the better, except perhaps as to the hearing."
Just at this point some fresh visitors arrived, and John prepared to go; but, finding the passage blocked by a double perambulator, and a smiling nurse and nursemaid exchanging confidences with Betty at the door, and hearing the tallest of the visitors (who was about as high as the table) declare that "Mamma said they were not to stop, but she sent her love and the Graphic," he resumed his seat, and offered a knee and an inspection of his watch to the two nearest young Mackenzies. There were nine young Mackenzies, of all ages; every year a fresh curly head or Sunday hat appeared in the square pew by the north door, which Mr. Peters compared to a pigeon pie, till at last it ran over altogether into another seat by the pulpit, which could hardly contain them now.
Miss Toosey's present visitors were the younger detachment, all of them pretty more or less with that beauty which has been called "the sacrament of goodness and innocence,"—cheerful souls, not tall enough to see troubles,—very well contented with life as seen from near the ground, which is, I fancy, a much more amusing point of view than we enjoy. They had a good deal of information to give, unintelligible to John, but Miss Toosey gave a free translation, which enlightened his darkness. Life was more than usually cheerful that morning, for they had met that walking money-bag, papa, as they went out, whose store of pennies was inexhaustible when he could be cajoled or teased into feeling in his pocket. To-day in a moment of lavish generosity, he had given a penny all round, even to Kitty, who had conveyed it at once to her mouth, without waiting for the visit to Mrs. Goodenough's, which transformed pennies into all that heart can desire.
"Mine penny!" says Mabel, who is rather solemnized by her position on John's knee; and she allows him to catch a glimpse of her treasure, clasped tightly in her soft knitted glove, in which the fingers live all together in dimpled friendliness, and the thumb only enjoys a house to itself.
"What are you going to buy?" asks John.
"Bung," is the decided answer.
Meanwhile the other children are examining the money-box on the table, rattling its contents in a manner deafening to older ears, till Miss Toosey begins to tell them of the poor little black children who never go to church or say their prayers, which rouses great interest.