Here absolute terror lest Ted should really offer those three shillings to the glorious creature in the first flush of a womanhood which seemed to Ned to be worth the whole world, made him step forward, holding out a shining sovereign. "We've really been most awfully comfortable," he said apologetically, "and if you--if you wouldn't mind giving this----" "Why!" she exclaimed, all eagerness, snatching at the coin, "I believe it's a sovereign! Fancy that! A whole sovereign!" Ned felt outraged at her indecent haste; and at the back of Ted's brain lay an instant regret concerning the three shillings; he would then only have been responsible for one and sixpence instead of ten shillings. Suddenly she held the coin up to the window, laughed--a rippling laugh like running water--and handed it back again. "Thanks for letting me see it; I hadn't seen one before, but, as grandfather says, it blocks the sunlight just like a penny!" "You--you hadn't seen a sovereign!" said Ned feebly. She shook her head. "We don't have money in this house. Grandfather doesn't hold with it." "Not hold with it!" echoed Ted argumentatively. "But you must--you must pay your debts; and we want to pay ours." Her face grew serious. "Ah! you want to pay something. That's Martha's business. Here! Martha! These gentlemen want to pay you a sovereign." At an inner door the figure of "the General" appeared with floury arms and her prim bob curtsey. "Hope the hi'fer didn't disturb of you, gentlemen," she said cheerfully; "but really there ain't nothing owin', let alone a sovereign's worth." "But there must be something; and we tried to find you before, but you were asleep," protested Ned in an aggrieved tone. "Asleep! Lord save us!" laughed Martha. "Why! Adam bein' that sound after the calvin', I was over to the loft myself three times afore I come in to my stove. But there ain't nothin'. The yay was 'ome grown, and welcome, seeing 'twas but beddin' stuff at best, and none spoilt for use by humans sleepin' on it." A faint chuckle showed her sense of superiority. "But there was the beefsteak pie," began Ned. Martha's giggle increased. "'Twouldn't never 'ave kep' sweet over Sunday, sir, so the pigs 'ud 'ave 'ad it if you gentlemen 'adn't." That was an unanswerable argument. "Will you please take it back," said the girl imperiously, holding the gold out in the easy clasp of her finger and thumb. "But there was the tea--and the pillows and the blankets," protested Ted severely. She turned on him swiftly. "Don't you hear Martha doesn't want it, and I don't want it. So if you don't want it also, we'd better give it to Cockatua, for I'm tired of holding it. Here, Cockatua, is a golden sovereign for you."