'What's this you have put into the gruel, Mary?' said a pale, sickly-looking man one evening, taking something out of his mouth, which he held towards the feeble gleams emitted by a farthing rush-light standing on the mantel-piece.
'What is it, father?' inquired a young girl, approaching him. 'Isn't the gruel good?'
'It's good enough,' replied the man; 'but here's something in it: it's a shilling, I believe.'
'It's a guinea, I declare!' exclaimed the girl, as she took the coin from him and examined it nearer the light.
'A guinea!' repeated the man; 'well, that's the first bit of luck I've had these seven years or more. It never could have come when we wanted it worse. Shew it us here, Mary.'
'But it's not ours, father,' said Mary. 'I paid away the last shilling we had for the meal, and here's the change.'
'God has sent it us, girl! He saw our distress, and he sent it us in His mercy!' said the man, grasping the piece of gold with his thin, bony fingers.
'It must be Mr Benjamin's,' returned she. 'He must have dropped it into the meal-tub that stands by the counter.'
'How do you know that?' inquired the man with an impatient tone and a half-angry glance. 'How can you tell how it came into the gruel? Perhaps it was lying at the bottom of the basin, or at the bottom of the sauce-pan. Most likely it was.'