"But the hiding it," said Captain Desart, "the hiding it, and yet to my face persisting that he had never touched nurse's half-sovereign. I can't make the child out."
"He says he didn't know nurse had any sovereigns," put in Floss.
"Are you there again, you ubiquitous child?" said her father.
Floss looked rather frightened—such a long word as ubiquitous must surely mean something very naughty; but her father's voice was not angry, so she took courage.
"Does he know what a sovereign means?" said Mrs. Desart. "Perhaps there is some confusion in his mind which makes him seem obstinate when he isn't so really."
"He said he knew I had sovereigns," said Floss, "and I couldn't think what he meant. Oh, mamma," she went on suddenly, "I do believe I know what he was thinking of. It was my kings and queens."
And before her father or mother could stop her, she had darted off to the nursery. In two minutes she was back again, holding out to her mother a round wooden box—the sort of box one often used to see with picture alphabets for little children, but instead of an alphabet, Floss's box contained a set of round cards, each about the size of the top of a wine-glass, with the heads of all the English kings and queens, from William the Conqueror down to Victoria!
"'Sovereigns of England,' mamma, you see," she exclaimed, pointing to the words on the lid, and quite out of breath with hurry and excitement, "and I very often call them my sovereigns; and of course Carrots didn't understand how there could be a half one of them, nor how nurse could have any."
"It must be so," said Mrs. Desart to her husband; "the poor child really did not understand."
"But still the taking the money at all, and hiding it?" said Captain Desart. "I don't see that it would be right not to punish him."