r hopes or her
pleasure. She was silent and depressed and answered Denas with a
slight air of injury.

"They have agreed to pay a penny a week for each child," Denas said to
her mother.

"Well, Denas, some will pay and some will never pay."

"To be sure. I know that, mother. But it does not much matter."

"Aw, then, it do matter, my girl--it do matter, a great deal." And
Joan began to cry a little and to arrange her crockery with far more
noise than was necessary.

"Dear mother, what is it? Are you in trouble of any kind?"

"Aw, then, Denas, I be troubled to think you never saw your father's
trouble. He be sad and anxious enough, God knows. And no one to say
'here, John,' or 'there, John,' or give him a helping hand in any
way."

"Sit down, mother, and tell me all. I have seen that father's ways are
changed and that he seldom goes to the fishing. I hoped the reason was
that he had no longer any need to go regularly."

"No need? Aw, my dear, he has no boat!"

"No boat! Mother, what do you mean to tell me?"

"I mean, child, that on the same night the steamer _Lorne_ was wrecked
your father lost his boat and his nets, and barely got to land with
his life--never would have done that but for Tris Penrose, who lost
all, too--and both of them at the mercy of the waves when the
life-boat reached them. Aw, my dear, a bad night. And bad times ever
since for your father. Now and then he do get a night with Trenager,
or Penlow, or Adam Oliver; but they be only making a job for him. And
when pilchard time comes, 'tis to St. Ives he must go and hire himself
out--at his age, too. It makes me ugly, Denas. My old dear hiring
himself out after he have sailed his own boat ever since man he was.
And then to see you spending pounds and pounds on school-benches and
books, and talking of it not mattering if you was paid or not paid;
and me weighing every penny-piece, and your father counting the
pipefuls in his tobacco-jar. Aw, 'tis cruel hard! Cruel! cruel!"

"Now, then, mother, dry your eyes--and there--let me kiss them dry.
Listen: Father shall have the finest fishing-boat that sails out of
any Cornish port. Oh, mother, dear! Spend every penny you want to
spend, and I will go to the church town this afternoon to buy father
tobacco for a whole year."

"Let me cry! Let me cry for joy, Denas! Let me cry for joy! You have
rolled a stone off my heart. Be you rich, dear?"

"Not rich, mother, but I have sixteen hundred pounds at