hem old clothes. Stop! Hold that light
down, Hannah; there's a place underneath here. Them papers in the till
takes a shallow part. Oh, my gracious! See here, will ye? Hold the
light, hold the light!"

There was a hidden drawer in the chest's side--a long, deep place, and
it was full of gold pieces. Hannah had seated herself in the chair to
be out of her sister's way. She held the lamp with one hand and
gathered her apron on her lap with the other, while Betsey, exultant
and hawk-eyed, took out handful after handful of heavy coins, letting
them jingle and chink, letting them shine in the lamp's rays, letting
them roll across the floor--guineas, dollars, doubloons, old French
and Spanish and English gold!

_Now, now! Look! The eye at the window!_

At last they have found it all; the bag of silver, the great roll of
bank bills, and the heavy weight of gold--the prize-money that had
been like Robinson Crusoe's in the cave. They were rich women that
night; their faces grew young again as they sat side by side and
exulted while the old kitchen grew cold. There was nothing they might
not do within the range of their timid ambitions; they were women of
fortune now and their own mistresses. They were beginning at last to
live.

The watcher outside was cramped and chilled. He let himself down
softly from the high step of the winter banking, and crept toward the
barn, where he might bury himself in the hay and think. His fingers
were quick to find the peg that opened the little barn door; the
beasts within were startled and stumbled to their feet, then went back
to their slumbers. The night wore on; the light spring rain began to
fall, and the sound of it on the house roof close down upon the
sisters' bed lulled them quickly to sleep. Twelve, one, two o'clock
passed by.

They had put back the money and the clothes and the minor goods and
treasures and pulled the chest back into the bedroom so that it was
out of sight from the kitchen; the bedroom door was always shut by
day. The younger sister wished to carry the money to their own room,
but Betsey disdained such precaution. The money had always been safe
in the old chest, and there it should stay. The next week they would
go to Riverport and put it into the bank; it was no use to lose the
interest any longer. Because their father had lost some invested money
in his early youth, it did not follow that every bank was faithless.
Betsey's self-assertion was amazing, but they