"I make no doubt whose it is, Jane," said Lydia Purcell quietly and steadily. "It is my own. This is my purse. It is the one poor old Mrs. Bell lost so many years ago. You were a child at the time, but there was some fuss made about it. I am short of money now, sadly short! and I count it a providence that this, small as it is, should have turned up." "You mean to keep it then?" said Jane. "Why, yes, I certainly do. You don't suppose I will hand it over to that little thief of a French girl? Besides, it is my own. Is it likely I should not know my own purse?" "Is there much money in it?" asked Jane as quietly as before. "No, nothing to make a fuss about. Only a few sovereigns and some silver. Nothing much, but still of value to a hard-working woman." "After that lie, I'll not spare her," muttered Jane to herself. Aloud she said, "I was only a child of ten years or so, but I remember the last time poor Mistress Bell was in that attic." "Indeed. And when was that?" asked Lydia. "I suppose it was then as she dropped the purse, and it got swept away in all the confusion that followed," continued Jane, now placing herself in front of Lydia, and gazing at her. Lydia was helping herself to another mutton-chop, and began to feel a little uncomfortable. "When was Mrs. Bell last in the attics?" she said. "I was with her," continued Jane. "I used to play a good bit with Missie Mercy in those days, you remember, ma'am? Mrs. Bell was poking about, but I was anxious for Mercy to come home to go on with our play, and I went to the window. I looked out. There was a fine view from that 'ere attic window. I looked out, and I saw--" "What?" asked Lydia Purcell. She had laid down her knife and fork now, and her face had grown a trifle pale. "Oh! nothing much. I saw you, ma'am, and Missie Mercy going into that poor mason's cottage, him as died of the malignant fever. You was there a good half hour or so. It was a day or two later as poor Missie sickened." "I did not think it was fever," said Lydia. "Believe me, believe me, Jane, I did not know it certainly until we were leaving the cottage. Oh! my poor lamb, my poor innocent, innocent murdered lamb!" Lydia covered her face with her hands; she was trembling. Even her strong, hard-worked hands were white from the storm of feeling within. "You knew of this, you knew this of me all these years, and you never told. You never told even _me_ until to-night," said Lydia presently, raising a haggard face. "I knew it, and I never told even you until to-night," repeated Jane. "Why do you tell me to-night?" "May I take away the supper, ma'am, or shall you want any more?"