joy of confusion and
strife among 'em, proud as they are, and of danger--danger, Alice!'

'What danger?'

'I have seen what I have seen. I know what I know!' chuckled the mother.
'Let some look to it. Let some be upon their guard. My gal may keep good
company yet!'

Then, seeing that in the wondering earnestness with which her daughter
regarded her, her hand involuntarily closed upon the money, the old
woman made more speed to secure it, and hurriedly added, 'but I'll go
buy something; I'll go buy something.'

As she stood with her hand stretched out before her daughter, her
daughter, glancing again at the money, put it to her lips before parting
with it.

'What, Ally! Do you kiss it?' chuckled the old woman. 'That's like me--I
often do. Oh, it's so good to us!' squeezing her own tarnished halfpence
up to her bag of a throat, 'so good to us in everything but not coming
in heaps!'

'I kiss it, mother,' said the daughter, 'or I did then--I don't know
that I ever did before--for the giver's sake.'

'The giver, eh, deary?' retorted the old woman, whose dimmed eyes
glistened as she took it. 'Ay! I'll kiss it for the giver's sake, too,
when the giver can make it go farther. But I'll go spend it, deary. I'll
be back directly.'

'You seem to say you know a great deal, mother,' said the daughter,
following her to the door with her eyes. 'You have grown very wise since
we parted.'

'Know!' croaked the old woman, coming back a step or two, 'I know more
than you think I know more than he thinks, deary, as I'll tell you by
and bye. I know all.'

The daughter smiled incredulously.

'I know of his brother, Alice,' said the old woman, stretching out her
neck with a leer of malice absolutely frightful, 'who might have been
where you have been--for stealing money--and who lives with his sister,
over yonder, by the north road out of London.'

'Where?'

'By the north road out of London, deary. You shall see the house if you
like. It ain't much to boast of, genteel as his own is. No, no, no,'
cried the old woman, shaking her head and laughing; for her daughter had
started up, 'not now; it's too far off; it's by the milestone, where the
stones are heaped;--to-morrow, deary, if it's fine, and you are in the
humour. But I'll go spend--'

'Stop!' and the daughter flung herself upon her, with her former passion
raging like a fire. 'The sister is a fair-faced Devil, with brown hair?'

The old woman, amazed and terrified, nodd