o one was watching, and then stooped down and put the
spade-guinea in the dust of the floor under the dressing-table. She
would have none of his hateful money. The sovereign she took care of
because it was for her father, and he might buy something useful with
it; he wanted a few shillings badly enough.

So the spade-guinea remained in the dust of the floor for a week or two,
till it pleased the housemaid to move the dressing-table to brush away
the accumulation, when she found the shining one in the fluff.

Being over thirty, she held her tongue, the guinea henceforward
travelled down the stream of Time fast enough though silently, but she
took the first opportunity of examining the iron box under the Pacha's
bed, thinking perhaps there might be a chink in it. And it was curious
how for some time afterwards a fit of extraordinary industry prevailed
in the house; there was not a table, a chair, or any piece of furniture
that was not chivvied about under pretence of polishing. She actually
had a day's holiday and a cast-off gown given to her as a reward for her
labours.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIV.

AMARYLLIS did not look back as she walked beside her grandfather slowly
up the street, or she would have seen the company of relations watching
them from the bow-window.

Iden went straight through the crowd without any hesitation on account
of his age--angry as she was, Amaryllis feared several times lest the
clumsy people should over-turn him, and tried her best to shield him.
But he had a knack of keeping on his feet--the sort of knack you learn
by skating--and did not totter much more than usual, despite the press.

The world gets on with very little amusement somehow. Here were two or
three thousand people packed in the street, and all they had to enliven
their festive gathering was the same old toys their fathers' fathers'
fathers had set before them.

Rows of booths for the display of "fairings," gingerbread, nuts, cakes,
brandy-balls, and sugar-plums stood in the gutter each side.

The "fairings" were sweet biscuits--they have been made every fair this
hundred years.

The nuts were dry and hard, just as Spanish nuts always are. The
gingerbread was moulded in the same old shapes of clumsy horses outlined
with gilt.

There was the same old trumpeting and tootling, tom-tomming, and roaring
of showmen's voices. The same old roundabouts, only now they were driven
by steam, and