“As to building another room, Mr. Martin Barton, that will never do,” (oh, how Ira Elkado stared to see what a sway she had!) said Jenny Hart,—“for the back parlour is dark enough already, and we shall have less draft through the shop, too, if we clutter up the yard; but the twins are soon going to school; I spoke to Mrs. Playfair yesterday,—she was buying canvass of me,—and she has promised to take good care of the children, and for one year let them off easy—after that,” said she, whispering in Mrs. Martin Barton’s ear—“after that, we’ll get poor old Hojer to teach them at home, and Mrs. Armstrong will be a sort of governess to them; for old Hojer Bringle is a dead weight in the shop.” “Good,” said Mrs. Martin Barton, and she went the other side of Jenny Hart and whispered it to Martin Barton. “Good,” said he. “Oh, if I had only the ruling of that girl,” thought Ira Elkado, “how I would quell her.” Just as he said this, mentally, however, Jenny Hart, who had sold a gross of pearl buttons while the Martin Bartons were saying “good, good,” thrust a bad shilling in his hand. “You took that bad shilling from a boy, yesterday,” said she, “and gave it to Amy Russel this morning; it has come back, and it must be charged to you.” Ira Elkado put it in his pocket and gave her a good shilling; but the moment her quick eye was directed to something else, he slipped the bad piece of money in old Hosea Bringle’s drawer and helped himself to another, for he did not see why he should lose it. Hosea Bringle stood up, holding by the counter, fast asleep, and did not see it. “That bad shilling,” said Jenny Hart, “will be known again, I’ll warrant, for I run the file across the edge. You had better put it in Hosea Bringle’s bad money drawer, that last slit in the corner; all the counterfeit money goes there.” “Powers on earth!” thought Ira Elkado, “did the little black-eyed devil see me slip the shilling in?” No, Jenny Hart did not see him do it, but she suspected he would. She knew that he was a capital hand to buy goods at auction, and it was for this purpose she hired him—we may as well say she hired him, for it was all her doings. Martin Barton had nothing to do but approve; Jenny Hart, therefore, put up with many things from him. “Mrs. Martin Barton,” said her husband, “what a long holiday those children have; how noisy they are, jumping and screaming like mad things; and old Hosea Bringle with your night cap on—only look there.”