2 wa
Q ’ “SD

 

 
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
  
 
  
   
   
   
   
 
 

CARROTS IN TROUBLE. 65

“ My half-sovereign,” said nurse, as if hardly
believing what she saw.

“Of course it’s your half-sovereign,” said
Mott, “it’s as plain as a pikestaff. But how
did it come there? that’s the question.”

Nurse looked at Carrots with puzzled per-
plexity. “He couldn't have known,” she
said in a low voice, too low for Carrots to
hear. He was still sitting on the floor sob-
bing ; and through his sobs was:to be heard
now and then the melancholy cry, “ My secret!
oh, my poor secret!”

“You hear what he says,” said Maurice;
“what does his ‘secret’ mean but that he
sneaked into your drawer and took the half-
sovereign, and now doesn’t like being found
out. I’m ashamed to have him for my, brother,
that I am, the little cad!”

“But he couldn’t have understood,” said
nurse, at a loss how otherwise to defend her
little boy. “I’m not even sure that he rightly
knew of my losing it; and he might have taken
it, meaning no harm, not knowing what it was,

indeed, very likely.”