"I didn't mean to be unkind," said Maudie penitently.
"P'ease do on with the story," said the little boys.
"Well, when at last she got home, she opened the little packet," continued Maudie, "and what do you think she saw? Instead of two pennies and a halfpenny perhaps, or something like that, there were—let me see—yes, that was it—there were a gold pound, a half-a-crown, and a shilling. Just fancy! Lizzie was so surprised that she didn't know what she felt—she looked at them and looked at them, and turned them in her hand, and then all at once it came into her mind that of course the lady had given her them by mistake, and that she should take them back to her. And she jumped up very quick and said to her grandmother there was another message she had to go, and without thinking anything about whether the lady would still be there or not, off she ran back again to the place where the poor people had their breakfast. She ran as hard as she could, but of course when she got there it was too late—the breakfast was done long ago, and all the people away and the doors locked, and there was no one about at all to tell her where she could find the lady. And Lizzie was so unhappy that she sat down on a step and cried. You see it was such a disappointment, for she couldn't tell how much the lady had meant to give her, and so she didn't like to take any. Besides, she felt that it would be better to give the packet back just as it was, only she had so wanted the pennies, for she never had any. The baker's wife always paid her grandmother, not Lizzie herself, for Lizzie's going messages.
"And after she had cried a good while she got up and went home. But just as she got near the baker's shop she thought she might ask there if they knew the lady's name, so she went in to ask. There was no one in the shop but the young woman who helped—the others had gone to church."
"How was it the shop was open, then, as it was Sunday?" asked Magdalen.
"It wasn't open, only there was a sort of door in the shutters that Lizzie always went in and out by on Sunday mornings. I know that, because there was a picture of it—I remember now where I read the story—it was in a big picture magazine when I was quite a little girl," said Maudie. "And this young woman was tidying the shop a little, and just going to shut it altogether when Lizzie went in. She was a good-natured young woman and she looked in the money books for the lady's name, but it wasn't in—only the name of the man the room belonged to where the breakfast was—and then she asked Lizzie what she wanted to know for, and Lizzie told her. The young woman told her she was very silly to think of giving it back. She said to her that certainly the lady had given it her, it wasn't even as if she had found it. And Lizzie could not say that was not true, and she felt so puzzled at first that she didn't know what to say. The young woman offered to change it for her so that nobody could wonder how she had got a gold piece, but Lizzie said she would think about it first. And then she went home, and thought, and thought, till at last it came quite plain into her mind that though it was true that the lady had given it her, still it was more true that she hadn't meant to give it her. And then she didn't feel so unhappy."
Maudie stopped for a moment. It had turned out quite a long story, and she was a little tired.
"And what did she do then? Quick, Maudie," said Hoodie.
"What did her do? Kick, kick, Maudie," said the little boys.
"Hush, children, don't hurry Maudie so. Let her rest a minute," said Cousin Magdalen; "she must be a little tired with speaking so long."