then round my neck, until I
was half stifled with their embraces, and slobbered all over with their
tears.

"Dearest mamma," said I, "I am very glad to see the noble manner in
which you bear your loss; and more still to know that you are so rich
as to be able to put up with it." The fact was, I really thought the
old lady had got a private hoard of her own, as many of them have--a
thousand pounds or so in a stocking. Had she put by thirty pounds a
year, as well she might, for the thirty years of her marriage, there
would have been nine hundred pounds clear, and no mistake. But still
I was angry to think that any such paltry concealment had been
practised--concealment too of MY money; so I turned on her pretty
sharply, and continued my speech. "You say, Ma'am, that you are rich,
and that Pump and Aldgate's failure has no effect upon you. I am very
happy to hear you say so, Ma'am--very happy that you ARE rich; and I
should like to know where your property, my father's property, for
you had none of your own,--I should like to know where this money
lies--WHERE YOU HAVE CONCEALED IT, Ma'am; and, permit me to say, that
when I agreed to board you and my two sisters for eighty pounds a year,
I did not know that you had OTHER resources than those mentioned in my
blessed father's will."

This I said to her because I hated the meanness of concealment, not
because I lost by the bargain of boarding them: for the three poor
things did not eat much more than sparrows: and I've often since
calculated that I had a clear twenty pounds a year profit out of them.

Mamma and the girls looked quite astonished when I made the speech.
"What does he mean?" said Lucy to Eliza.

Mamma repeated the question. "My beloved Robert, what concealment are
you talking of?"

"I am talking of concealed property, Ma'am," says I sternly.

"And do you--what--can you--do you really suppose that I have
concealed--any of that blessed sa-a-a-aint's prop-op-op-operty?" screams
out mamma. "Robert," says she--"Bob, my own darling boy--my fondest,
best beloved, now HE is gone" (meaning my late governor--more
tears)--"you don't, you cannot fancy that your own mother, who bore you,
and nursed you, and wept for you, and would give her all to save you
from a moment's harm--you don't suppose that she would che-e-e-eat you!"
And here she gave a louder screech than ever, and flung back on the
sofa; and one of my sisters went and tumbled into her arms, and t'other
wen