a little bag of dark blue silk, a little bag whose contents seemed all
heavily down in one corner. Georgiana's eyes regarded it with some
wonder. She had thought she knew by heart every one of her father's few
belongings, but this little bag was new to her.

"I think," he said softly, "the time has come for this. It was meant,
perhaps, to be given you a little later in your history, but if your
mother knew--nay, I feel she does know and approve--she would be the
first to say to me: '_Give it to her now, David; she'll never want it
more than now._'"

Georgiana leaned forward, her lips parted. She seemed hardly to breathe
as her father went on, his slender fingers gently caressing the little
blue silk bag:

"From the time you were a baby, a very little baby, she saved this money
for you. It came mostly from wedding fees; I always gave her those to do
with as she would. They were a country minister's fees--two-and-three-dollar
fees mostly--once in a great while some affluent farmer would pay me
five dollars. How your mother's eyes would shine when I could give her a
five! She turned all the bills and silver into gold--a great many of
these pieces are one-dollar gold pieces. There are none of them in
circulation now; it may easily be that they have increased in value,
being almost a curiosity in these days. I think I have heard of
something like that. At any rate, dear, it is all yours. It was to have
been given to you to buy your wedding outfit; but--she would have wanted
you to have it when it could help you most." He held out the little bag.
"She made it of a bit of her wedding dress," he said, and his hand
trembled as it was extended toward his daughter. "It was not only her
wedding dress, it was the best dress she had for many years."

With a low cry that was like that of a mother's for a child, Georgiana
took the little blue silk bag, heavy in its corner with the weight of
many small gold pieces, and crushed it against her lips. Then, with it
held close to her cheek, she laid her head down on her father's knee and
sobbed her heart out for the mother she had missed for ten long years.

In the little bag there proved to be almost a hundred
dollars--ninety-two in all.

"She sorely wanted to get it to a hundred," said Father Davy, when he
and Georgiana, their eyes still wet, had counted the tarnished gold
pieces that had waited so long to be delivered to their owner. "There
seemed a dearth of marriages the year bef