?"

"I have been thinking of that," answered Sophy. "You remember that those
good Miss Burtons taught me all kinds of needlework, and I know people
can make money by needlework. And then, Grandy dear, what can't you do?
Do you forget Mrs. Saunders's books that you bound, and her cups and
saucers that you mended? So we would both work, and have a little
cottage and a garden, that we could take care of, and sell the herbs
and vegetables. Oh, I have thought over it all, the last fortnight, a
hundred hundred times, only I did not dare to speak first."

Waife listened very attentively. "I can make very good baskets," said
he, rubbing his chin, "famous baskets (if one could hire a bit of osier
ground), and, as you say, there might be other fancy articles I could
turn out prettily enough, and you could work samplers, and urn-rugs, and
doileys, and pincushions, and so forth; and what with a rood or two
of garden ground, and poultry (the Mayor says poultry is healthy for
children), upon my word, if we could find a safe place, and people would
not trouble us with their gossip, and we could save a little money for
you when I am--"

"Bees too,--honey?" interrupted Sophy, growing more and more interested
and excited.

"Yes, bees,--certainly. A cottage of that kind in a village would not be
above L6 a year, and L20 spent on materials for fancy-works would set us
up. Ah but furniture, beds and tables,--monstrous dear!"

"Oh, no! very little would do at first."

"Let us count the money we have left," said Waife, throwing himself down
on a piece of sward that encircled a shady mulberry-tree. Old man and
child counted the money, bit by bit, gayly yet anxiously,--babbling,
interrupting each other,--scheme upon scheme: they forgot past
and present as much as in acting plays; they were absorbed in the
future,--innocent simple future,--innocent as the future planned by two
infants fresh from "Robinson Crusoe" or fairy tales.

"I remember, I remember, just the place for us," cried Waife, suddenly.
"It is many, many, many years since I was there; I was courting my Lizzy
at the time,--alas! alas. But no sad thoughts now!--just the place,
near a large town, but in a pretty village quite retired from it. 'T was
there I learned to make baskets. I had broken my leg; fall from a horse;
nothing to do. I lodged with an old basketmaker; he had a capital trade.
Rivulet at the back of his house; reeds, osiers, plentiful. I see them
now, as I saw