“But-” she hesitated, and then went on rapidly in the lowest of low tones-"if your Honour wouldn't mind giving me silver instead of gold? They won't change gold for me in the town; they'll think I have stolen it. Most Sundays I'm allowed to take home broken meats to mother and grandfather, and to-night I shan't be given any, now that I'm sent away. They'll be expecting me, and indeed, sir, I can't bear to face them-or I wouldn't ask you. I beg your Honour's pardon for saying so much."

"Hullo!" exclaimed the Collector. "Why, yes, to be sure, you must be grandchild to the old man of the sea-him that I met on the beach this afternoon t'other side of the headland. Lives in a hovel with a woodpile beside it, and a daughter that looks out for wreckage?"

"Your Honour spoke with them?" Into Ruth's face there mounted a deeper tide of colour. But whereas the first flush had been dark with distress, this second spread with a glow of affection. Her eyes seemed to take light from it, and shone.

"I spoke with the old man. Since you have said so much, I may say more. I gave him food; he was starving."

She bent her head. Her hands moved a little, with a gesture most pitiful to see. "I was afraid," she muttered, "with these gales, and no getting to the oyster beds."

"He took some food, too, to his daughter, with a bottle of wine, as I remember."

A bright tear dropped. In the candle-light Dicky saw it splash on the back of her hand, by the wrist. "God bless your Honour!" Dicky could just hear the words.

The door opened and Manasseh entered, bearing the coffee on a silver tray.

"Manasseh," said his master, "take that guinea and bring me change for it. If you have no silver in the treasury get the landlady to change it for you."

Manasseh was affronted. His hand came near to shaking as he poured and handed the coffee.

"Yo' Hon'ah doan off'n use de metal," he answered. "Dat's sho'. But whiles an' again yo' Hon❜ah condescends ter want it. Dat bein' so, I keep it by mean' polished. I doan fetch yo' Hon'ah w'at any low trash has handled."

He withdrew, leaving this fine shaft to rankle, and by and by entered with a small velvet bag, from the neck of which he shook a small cascade of silver coins, all exquisitely polished.

"Count me out change for a guinea," commanded his master.

Manasseh obeyed.

"Now empty the bag, put into it what you have counted, and sweep up the rest."

Manasseh dropped in the coins one by one, and

tied the neck of the bag with its silken ribbon. The Collector took it from him and tossed it to the girl. "Here-catch!" said he carelessly.

But her burnt hands shrank from closing on it, and it fell to the floor. She stooped, recovered it, and slipped it within her bodice. As she rose erect again her eyes rested in wonder on the black servant who with a crumb-brush was sweeping the money off the table and catching it upon the coffee-salver. The rain and clash of the coins appeared to confuse her for a moment. Then with another curtsy and a “Thank your Honour," she moved to the door.

"But wait," said the Collector sharply, on a sudden thought. "You are not meaning to walk all the way home, surely?"

"Yes."

"At this hour?"

"The wind has gone down. I do not mind the dark, and the distance is nothing. . . . Oh, I forgot: your Honour thinks that, with all this money, some one will try to rob me?"

The Collector smiled. "You would appear to be a very innocent young woman," he said. "I was not, as a fact, thinking of the money."

"Nobody will guess that I am carrying so much," she said simply; "so it will be quite safe."

"Nevertheless this may help to give you confidence," said he. Feeling in the breast pocket of his laced satin

waistcoat, he drew forth a diminutive pistol—a delicate toy, with a pattern of silver foliated over the butt. "It is loaded," he explained, “and primed; though it cannot go off unless you pull back the trigger. At close quarters it can be pretty deadly. Do you understand firearms?"

"Grandfather has a fowling-piece," she answered; "and, now that his sight has failed, on Sundays I try to shoot sea-birds for him. He says that I have a good eye. But last week the birds had all flown inland, because of the gale."

"Then take this. It is nothing to carry, and you may feel the safer for it."

She put up a hand to decline. "Why should I need it?"

"We'll hope you will not. But do as I bid you, girl. I shall be passing back along the beach in two days' time, and will call for it."

She resisted no longer.

"I will take it," she said.

"By that time I may have your Honour."

thought of words to thank

She curtsied again.

"Manasseh!" Captain Vyell pointed to the door. The negro opened it and stood aside majestically as she passed out and was gone.

Let moralists perpend. Ruth Josselin had knocked at that door after a sharp struggle between conscience

and crying want. The poverty known to Ruth was of the extreme kind that gnaws the entrails with hunger. It had furthermore starved her childhood of religion, and her sole code of honour came to her by instinct. Yet she had knocked at the door with no thought but that the Collector's guinea had come to her hand by mistake, and no expectancy but that the Collector would thank her and take it back. She was shy, more

over. It had cost courage.

"Honesty is the best policy." True enough, no doubt. Yet, when all is said, but for some radical instinct of honesty, untaught, brave to conquer a more than selfish need, Ruth had never brought back her guinea. And, yet again, from that action all the rest of this story flows. When we have told it, let the moralists decide.