Cynthia found the same in
her purse.

"I will put mine away for a 'safety' in the spring," said Jack, clinking
his gold with the air of a miser, and examining the empty egg-shells.
"Isn't Aunt Betsey a daisy and no mistake? Just see the way she's fixed
up this egg-shell; she cut it in half as neat as a pin. I don't see how
she ever did it."

"I wish I had an Aunt Betsey," remarked Neal; "those gold pieces would
come in pretty handy just now."

"Aunt Betsey is so fond of giving gold," said Cynthia. "She always says
it is real money, and bills are nothing but paper. I shall put mine away
for the present, until I think of something I want terribly much, and
then I will go grandly to Boston and buy it like a duchess. Goody
Two-shoes, but I feel rich!"

And she danced gayly up and down the room, waving her purse in the air.

Neal had very nice presents, but he was disappointed to find that there
was no money among them. He suspected, and correctly, that his sister
and her husband had thought it wiser not to give him any more at
present.

"Then I'm in for it," thought he. "I'll have to ask Hessie, and there'll
be no end of a row. Of course she will give it to me in the end, but it
would have been nicer all round if she had come out handsomely with a
Christmas check. Of course these skates are dandy, and so is the
dress-suit case and the nobby umbrella and the sleeve-buttons; but just
at present I would rather have the cash they all cost."

He said something of this afterwards to Cynthia.

"Bronson is screwing me for all he's worth," said he. "I'll have to get
the money somehow, and fifty dollars is no joke. Of course, I'm not
going to take off the ten he so kindly offered for the canoe; I'd like
to see myself! If Hessie doesn't see matters in the same light I'll have
to do something desperate. But, of course, she will give it to me."

"Neal," said Cynthia, impulsively, "if mamma doesn't give you the money
you must borrow it of me. There is that fifty dollars Aunt Betsey has
given me. You can have it just as well as not."

"Cynthia, you're a brick, and no mistake," said Neal, looking at her
affectionately, "but you know I wouldn't take your money for the world.
You must think me a low-down sort of fellow if you think I would."

"How absurd! It is a great deal better to owe it to me instead of to a
stranger like Bronson, or any one else. I'm sure I think of you just as
if you were my brother, and Jack wouldn't mind