and came back--runnin' like a long dog,
and very good and thoughtful it was of her. Most young wimen ain't
considerate like that."

This was all wide of the subject that engrossed the interest of
Bideabout, and had induced him to revisit the Ship. As the host
made no allusion to the topic, the Broom-Squire plunged into the
matter, headforemost.

"Joe Filmer," said he, "called me back. I didn't wish to come in
and trouble you now. But Joe said as how you wanted to speak to me
about some money as your wife had left with you for my Matabel;
and I thought it might be botherin' your mind when you wanted to
turn it to religious thought, and so I came back to say I'd
relieve you of it and take it at once."

"Money! Oh!" Mr. Verstage was a little difficult to turn from one
line of thought to another. "Polly never stood out for higher
wages. Not like some who, when they've been with you just long
enough to learn the ways of the house, and to make themselves
useful, and not to break everything they handle, and spoil
everything they touch, ask, 'Please will you advance my wages?'
Polly never did that."

"I am not speakin' of Polly," said Jonas, peevishly, "but of some
money that Joe Filmer told me you wanted to tell me about. Something
that your poor wife desired you to give to Matabel."

"Oh, you mean that hundred pounds. I wasn't against it. On the
contrary, I said I'd add fifty to it. I always said Sanna did wrong
in giving Matabel to--I mean flying in the face of Providence."

"I shall be very glad to take it, and thus relieve your mind of
all care."

"Oh, it's no care at all."

"It must be, and besides--it must interfere with your turning your
mind to serious thoughts."

"Oh, not at all. I can't give you the money. It is not for you."

"No; but it is for Matabel, and we are one."

"Oh, no; it's not for Matabel."

"The hundred and fifty pounds is not for Matabel? And yet you said
it was intended to make up to her for something you did not exactly
explain."

"No, it is not for Matabel. Matabel might have had it, I daresay,
but my old woman said she was set against that."

"Then we are to be deprived of it by her folly?" The Broom-Squire
flushed purple.

"Oh, no. It is all right. It is for the child."

"For the child! That is all the same. I am the father, and will
take care of the money."

"But I can't give it you."

"Have you not got it?"

"The money is all right. Sanna's hundred pounds--I know wher