"Mother, just look what I've come upon! I found the small board at the back loose, and beneath it, this."
Thus spoke Julia White, who was engaged in scrubbing out the single cupboard of their one room, and as she uttered the words she held up a paper with two sovereigns wrapped in it.
"Why are you so prying, child?" said the mother. "You would have been so much better without the knowledge of my secret. Now, if your father should come home tipsy to-night, you will be forced to tell him where the money is, and I shall lose the whole of it. Wherever to hide it away from you, I don't know."
Poor Julia looked frightened enough, for she was only eleven years of age, and her dread of her father, who frequently showed himself a ferocious ruffian, was extreme; but there was no help for the case now. The mother had to leave in little more than an hour to watch a patient to whom she was night nurse, and there was no time to find another hiding-place. To carry the money with her where she was going would scarcely have been safe, so, after seeing little Nancy, with the baby, safely returned, and giving the latter its meal at her breast, the good, hard-working woman departed to fulfil her engagement.
The children left alone, the terror of the elder one could not escape the notice of the younger, although she was only a little over seven; and she at length said—
"What can be the matter with you, Julia?"
"I know where mother's money is, and am afraid father will come home and want it."
"Tell him you know nothing about it. He always believes you."
"Nancy!"
She had been rightly taught by a good mother, and young as she was, realized that this was not the course to take, so, kneeling by the side of her child sister, she offered the following simple, but heartfelt, prayer—