to THE SILVER SHILLING.

forward to the opening, to take a look around. He ought not to
have done so; but he was inquisitive, and people often have to
pay for that. He slipped out into the fob; and when the purse
was taken out at night the Shilling remained behind, and was
sent out into the passage with the clothes. There he fell upon
the floor: no one heard it, no one saw it.

Next morning the clothes were carried back into the room ;
the gentleman put them on, and continued his journey, while the
Shilling remained behind. The coin was found, and was re-
quired to go into service again, so he was sent out with three
other coins.

“It isa pleasant thing to look about one in the world,” thought
the Shilling, “and to get to know strange people and foreign
customs.”

And now began the history of the Shilling, as told by himself.

“¢ Away with him, he’s bad—no use!’ These words went
through and through me,” said the Shilling. “I knew I sounded
well and had been properly coined. The people were certainly
mistaken. They could not mean me! but, yes, they did mean
me. I was the oneof whom they said, He’s bad—he’s no good.’
‘I must get rid of that fellow in the dark,’ said the man who had
received me ; and I was passed at night and abused in the day-
time. ‘Bad—no good,’ was the cry: ‘we must make haste and
get rid of him.’

“ And I trembled in the fingers of the holder each time I was
to be passed on as a coin of the country.

“What a miserable shilling I am! Of what use is my silver
to me, my value, my coinage, if all these things are looked on as
worthless? In the eyes of the world one has only the value the
world chooses to put upon one. It must be terrible indeed to
have a bad conscience, and to creep along on evil ways, if I, who
pie alte innocent, can feel so badly because I am only thought
guilty.

“Each time I was brought out I shuddered at the thought of
the eyes that would look at me, for I knew that I should be re-
jected and flung back upon the table, like an impostor and a
cheat. Once I came into the hands of a poor old woman, to
whom I was paid for a hard day’s work, and she could not get
rid of me at all. No one would accept me, and I was a perfect
worry to the old dame

“*T shall certainly be forced to deceive some one with this
shilling, she said ; ‘for, with the best will in the world, I can’t
hoard up a false shilling. The rich baker shall have him; he
at be able to bear the loss—but it’s wrong in me to do it, after
all.

“And I must lie heavy on that woman's conscience, too,
sighed I. ‘Am I really so much changed in my old age?’

‘And the woman went her way to the rich baker; but he knew