"I'm afraid you might lose it," he said.
"How could I lose it?" she said. "Are ye feared I'd drop it? 'Cause I tell ye what: I couldn't drop it if ye'd put it in an ould stockin' for me to carry."
Mr M'Keown smiled. "Perhaps a sock would do," he said. He went out of the room again, and came back with a sock. "But it will not be full," he said, as he tied the money in the toe. Then he said he would walk back with her. Honeybird went with him to get his coat, and brushed his top-hat for him with her arm, as Andy Graham had taught her. They set out, hand-in-hand, Honeybird carrying the sock. Mr M'Keown walked very slowly, and Honeybird talked all the way. She told him about her mother and Lull and Andy Graham, what she played, and what the others did, till they came to the gates of Rowallan.
"Now I shall leave you," Mr M'Keown said.
She kissed him good-bye, and when, half way up the avenue, she turned to look back he was gone. The others were having dinner. Jane and Mick had come back. Honeybird ran into the schoolroom, waving the sock.
"Ye were quare and cross with me for gettin' out a' bed last night, weren't ye, Janie? But luk what it got me." She shook the gold out of the sock on to the table.
They all danced round her while she told her tale. And when they ran down and told Mrs Kelly she was so bewildered by the news that she could not believe it till they brought her up and showed her the little heap of gold on the table. Honeybird was the least excited of them all; not even when Doctor Dixey came and made her tell her adventures twice over did she lose her head.
"Sure, Almighty God always does anythin' I ast Him," she said. "Mind ye, He's quare an' obliging; if I loss anythin' He fin's it for me as quick as quick."
"Well, He worked a miracle for you this time," said Doctor Dixey.
A fortnight later Honeybird wrote, or rather Jane held her hand while she wrote, to Mr M'Keown.