"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."
"Oh, no, father," said Mary: "it is long since we had a guinea."
"A guinea that we knew of; but I've had plenty in my time, and how do you know this is not one we had overlooked?"
"We've wanted a guinea too much to overlook one," answered she. "But never mind, father; eat your gruel, and don't think of it: your cheeks are getting quite red with talking so, and you won't be able to sleep when you go to bed."
"I don't expect to sleep," said the man, peevishly; "I never do sleep."
"I think you will, after that nice gruel!" said Mary, throwing her arms round his neck, and tenderly kissing his cheek.
"And a guinea in it to give it a relish, too!" returned the father, with a faint smile and an expression of archness, betokening an inner nature very different from the exterior which sorrow and poverty had encrusted on it.
His daughter then proposed that he should go to bed; and having assisted him to undress, and arranged her little household matters, she retired behind a tattered, drab-colored curtain which shaded her own mattress, and laid herself down to rest.
The apartment in which this little scene occurred, was in the attic story of a mean house, situated in one of the narrow courts or alleys betwixt the Strand and Drury-lane. The furniture it contained was of the poorest description; the cracked window-panes were coated with dust; and the scanty fire in the grate, although the evening was cold enough to make a large one desirable—all combined to testify to the poverty of the inhabitants. It was a sorry retreat for declining years and sickness, and a sad and cheerless home for the fresh cheek and glad hopes of youth; and all the worse, that neither father nor daughter was "to the manner born;" for poor John Glegg had, as he said, had plenty of guineas in his time; at least, what should have been plenty, had they been wisely husbanded. But John, to describe the thing as he saw it himself, had always "had luck against him." It did not signify what he undertook, his undertakings invariably turned out ill.