great anxiety came into Mrs. Jones's eyes, but the Bible was
drawn from between her trembling old hands, and Mrs. Morrison began to
turn its pages. She had not turned many before she came to the
five-pound note. "What is this?" she asked, in extreme surprise.

Mrs. Jones gave a little gasp, and twisted her fingers about.

"A five-pound note?" exclaimed Mrs. Morrison, holding it up. "How did
it come here?"

"It's mine, mum," quavered Mrs. Jones.

"Yours? Do you mean to say you have money hidden away and yet allow
Lady Shuttleworth to pay everything for you?"

"It's the first I ever 'ad, mum," faintly murmured the old lady, her
eyes following every movement of Mrs. Morrison's hands with a look of
almost animal anxiety.

"Where did it come from?"

"The young lady give it me yesterday, mum."

"The young lady?" Mrs. Morrison's voice grew very loud. "Do you mean
the person staying at the Pearces'?"

Mrs. Jones gulped, and feebly nodded.

"Most improper. Most wrong. Most dangerous. You cannot tell how she
came by it, and I must say I'm surprised at you, Mrs. Jones. It
probably is not a real one. It is unlikely a chit like that should be
able to give so large a sum away--" And Mrs. Morrison held up the note
to the light and turned it round and round, scrutinizing it from every
point of view, upside down, back to front, sideways, with one eye
shut; but it refused to look like anything but a good five-pound note,
and she could only repeat grimly "Most dangerous."

The old lady watched her, a terrible anxiety in her eyes. Her worst
fears were fulfilled when the vicar's wife folded it up and said
decidedly, "For the present I shall take care of it for you. You
cannot lie here with so much money loose about the place. Why, if it
got round the village you might have some one in who'd murder you.
People have been murdered before now for less than this. I shall speak
to the vicar about it." And she put it in her purse, shut it with a
snap, and took up the Bible again.

Mrs. Jones made a little sound between a gasp and a sob. Her head
rolled back on the pillow, and two tears dropped helplessly down the
furrows of her face. In that moment she felt the whole crushing misery
of being weak, and sick, and old,--so old that you have outlived your
claims to everything but the despotic care of charitable ladies, so
old that you are a mere hurdy-gurdy, expected each time any one in
search of edification chooses to turn your handle