"My Madeira nut!" exclaimed Bessie, in a tone of despair. "Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do?"
Her mother stopped quilting and turned to look at her.
"Where did you put it last?" she asked. "Surely, Bessie, you ought to remember that."
"I have never put it in but one spot," replied Bessie; "I left it in the drawer of my little table. When you grew better, and the table wasn't needed any more in your bedroom for you to stand your medicines on, I got Nathan to help me take it up stairs in the garret, just as you bade me, that day last week when he was here spending the afternoon. I thought I would still keep the nut there, for I had grown used to the place, and I liked to go to the drawer and pull it out to look at it sometimes. Oh dear, oh dear!" and Bessie burst into tears.
"Perhaps you haven't searched well," said her mother; "come, I'll go up stairs with you. I shouldn't wonder if it had got caught in the top of the drawer. I have heard of such things. I lost a handkerchief that way myself once."
"But," sobbed Bessie, "it couldn't get caught like that without being broken, because it was so thin shelled, and then I should have seen some of the pieces; or the money would have fallen back into the drawer, and I would have found that."
"How much was in it?" asked her mother. "There could not have been a great deal more than the very first silver Mr. Dart brought you for the cresses, for the rest we have spent from time to time as fast as it was received. I was sorry enough to do it too."
"I wasn't," said Bessie, brightening up a little through her tears, "I was glad and thankful, mother, to have it to spend. If it had not been for the cresses, what would have become of us all the while you were so sick?"
"God always provides for the poor and needy," said her mother gravely, "and I am certain that He who knows even when sparrows fall would not let us suffer. If this help had not sprung up for us through Mr. Dart, something else would have presented itself. Come, now, let us go to the garret and look for the money."
Bessie darted ahead of her mother as they went up the stairs, with a bound and a spring that brought her to the head of the flight when her mother was on the second step. She was young and agile, and besides she was greatly excited and in haste to begin the search. She did not gain any thing by her speed, however, for she had to wait at the landing until her mother had toiled slowly up.