"Ay, lad! that's asking. It's Mr. Benson's money," said she
mysteriously, "that I've been keeping for him. Is he in the
study, think ye?"
"Yes! I think so. Where have you been keeping it?"
"Never you mind!" She went towards the study, but, thinking she
might have been hard on her darling in refusing to gratify his
curiosity, she turned back and said--
"I say--if thou wilt thou mayest do me a job of work some day.
I'm wanting a frame made for a piece of writing."
And then she returned to go into the study, carrying her
sovereigns in her apron.
"Here, Master Thurstan," said she, pouring them out on the table
before her astonished master. "Take it, it's all yours."
"All mine! What can you mean?" asked he, bewildered.
She did not hear him and went on--
"Lock it up safe out o' the way. Dunnot go and leave it about to
tempt folks. I'll not answer for myself if money's left about. I
may be cribbing a sovereign."
"But where does it come from?" said he.
"Come from!" she replied. "Where does all money come from but the
bank, to be sure. I thought any one could tell that."
"I have no money in the bank!" said he, more and more perplexed.
"No, I knowed that; but I had. Dunnot ye remember how ye would
raise my wage last Martinmas eighteen year? You and Faith were
very headstrong, but I was too deep for you. See thee! I went and
put it i' th' bank. I was never going to touch it; and if I had
died it would have been all right, for I'd a will made, all
regular and tight--made by a lawyer (leastwise he would have been
a lawyer if he hadn't got transported first).
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