k.

Mr. Penfold's nerves were not strong. He and Nancy both huddled together
for mutual protection, and their faces had not a vestige of color left in
them.

However, after a period of general paralysis, Penfold whispered:

"I heard it drop something on the shavings."

"Then we shall be all in a blaze o' brimstone," shrieked Nancy, wringing
her hands.

And they waited to see.

Then, as no conflagration took place, Mr. Penfold got up, and said he
must go and see what it was the hand had dropped.

Nancy, in whom curiosity was beginning to battle with terror, let him go
to the fireplace without a word of objection, and then cried out:

"Don't go anigh it, sir; it will do you a mischief; don't touch, it
whatever. _Take the tongs."_

He took the tongs, and presently flung into the middle of the room a
small oilskin packet. This, as it lay on the ground, they both eyed like
two deer glowering at a piece of red cloth, and ready to leap back over
the moon if it should show signs of biting. But oil-skin is not
preternatural, nor has tradition connected it, however remotely, with the
Enemy of man.

Consequently, a great revulsion took place in Nancy, and she passed from
fear to indignation at having been frightened so.

She ran to the fireplace, and, putting her head up the chimney, screamed,
"Heave your dirt where you heave your love, ye Brazen!"

While she was objurgating her neighbor, whom, with feminine justice, she
held responsible for every act done in her house, Penfold undid the
packet, and Nancy returned to her seat, with her mind more at ease, to
examine the contents.

"Bank-notes!" cried Penfold.

"Ay," said Nancy incredulously, "they do look like bank-notes, and feel
like 'em; but they ain't wrote like them. Bank-notes ain't wrote black
like that in the left-hand corner."

Penfold explained.

"Ten-pound notes are not, nor fives; but large notes are. These are all
fifties."

"Fifty whats?"

"Fifty pounds."

"What, each of them bits of paper worth fifty pounds?"

"Yes. Let us count them; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
15, 16, 17, 18--Oh, Lord!--20. Why, that is two thousand pounds--just two
thousand pounds. It is the very sum that ruined me; it did not belong to
me, and it's being in the house ruined my poor Robert. And this does not
belong to you. Lock all the doors, bar all the windows, and burn them
before the police come."

"Wait a bit," said Nancy--"wait a bit." They sat