"Heaven give me patience!" muttered Jane to herself. Aloud she said, "And who, do you think, the money belongs to, ma'am?"
"I make no doubt whose it is, Jane," said Lydia Purcell quietly and steadily. "It is my own. This is my purse. It is the one poor old Mrs. Bell lost so many years ago. You were a child at the time, but there was some fuss made about it. I am short of money now, sadly short! and I count it a providence that this, small as it is, should have turned up."
"You mean to keep it then?" said Jane.
"Why, yes, I certainly do. You don't suppose I will hand it over to that little thief of a French girl? Besides, it is my own. Is it likely I should not know my own purse?"
"Is there much money in it?" asked Jane as quietly as before.
"No, nothing to make a fuss about. Only a few sovereigns and some silver. Nothing much, but still of value to a hard-working woman."
"After that lie, I'll not spare her," muttered Jane to herself. Aloud she said, "I was only a child of ten years or so, but I remember the last time poor Mistress Bell was in that attic."
"Indeed. And when was that?" asked Lydia.
"I suppose it was then as she dropped the purse, and it got swept away in all the confusion that followed," continued Jane, now placing herself in front of Lydia, and gazing at her.
Lydia was helping herself to another mutton-chop, and began to feel a little uncomfortable.