he servant. Probably she had happened to catch some
echo of Thomas Chadwick's great rolling voice. The servant retired.

"Good-evening, m'm," said Thomas Chadwick, raising his hat airily.
"Good-evening." He beamed.

"So you did find it?" said Mrs Vernon, calmly smiling. "I felt sure it
would be all right."

"Oh, yes, m'm." He tried to persuade himself that this sublime
confidence was characteristic of great ladies, and a laudable symptom
of aristocracy. But he would have preferred her to be a little less
confident. After all, in the hands of a conductor less honourable than
himself, of a common conductor, the purse might not have been so "all
right" as all that! He would have preferred to witness the change on Mrs
Vernon's features from desperate anxiety to glad relief. After all, L50,
10s. was money, however rich you were!

"Have you got it with you?" asked Mrs Vernon.

"Yes'm," said he. "I thought I'd just step up with it myself, so as to
be sure."

"It's very good of you!"

"Not at all," said he; and he produced the purse. "I think you'll find
it as it should be."

Mrs Vernon gave him a courtly smile as she thanked him.

"I'd like ye to count it, ma'am," said Chadwick, as she showed no
intention of even opening the purse.

"If you wish it," said she, and counted her wealth and restored it to
the purse. "_Quite_ right--_quite_ right! Fifty pounds and ten
shillings," she said pleasantly. "I'm very much obliged to you,
Chadwick."

"Not at all, m'm!" He was still standing in the sheltered porch.

An idea seemed to strike Mrs Clayton Vernon.

"Would you like something to drink?" she asked.

"Well, thank ye, m'm," said Thomas.

"Maria," said Mrs Vernon, calling to someone within the house, "bring
this man a glass of beer." And she turned again to Chadwick, smitten
with another idea. "Let me see. Your eldest daughter has two little
boys, hasn't she?"

"Yes'm," said Thomas--"twins."

"I thought so. Her husband is my cook's cousin. Well, here's two
threepenny bits--one for each of them." With some trouble she extracted
the coins from a rather shabby leather purse--evidently her household
purse. She bestowed them upon the honest conductor with another grateful
and condescending smile. "I hope you don't _mind_ taking them for the
chicks," she said. "I _do_ like giving things to children. It's so much
_nicer_, isn't it?"

"Certainly, m'm."

Then the servant brought the glass of beer, and Mrs Vernon, wit