Harriet was the daughter of an old friend, and Jane Bush was the child of a man who had once done her a service. Both these girls were received at Abbeyfield on very special terms, and Jane, in particular, was at the school almost free of any expense. Mrs Burton was not especially fond of Jane, but she remembered the time when Jane's father had been kind to her in her need, and she was determined to give the girl all the advantages of a good education; no one knew this; it was never whispered in the school that Harriet and Jane were taken on very different terms from their companions. Their rooms were just as comfortable, their education just as complete: but the girls themselves knew, and the thought rankled sorely in each young breast. Harriet had an aunt, it is true, who paid something for her schooling, but Jane Bush's father paid practically nothing at all. He was a very poor artist who could scarcely make two ends meet. Jane's mother was dead, and the girl would have been absolutely neglected but for Mrs Burton's great kindness to her. Jane Bush had a little brother and sister who were cared for, after a fashion, by an aunt, and, with the exception of her school-companions, they were the only people she loved in the world. Now, the thought of that five pounds, which was to be hers if Harriet was lucky enough to be selected as school-mother to Ralph, visited her heart again and again. What wonders could she not achieve with so large a sum? Why, five pounds! Five pounds meant one hundred shillings, and one hundred shillings meant two hundred sixpences and four hundred threepences! and as to the pennies which that mighty sum represented-- Jane felt that she was not old enough yet even to begin to calculate the magnitude of the amount! Yes, if she helped Harriet--she, who had always helped her more or less, would be the happy possessor of that sum. What could she not do for little Bobbie and small, round, black-eyed Miriam if she had five pounds of her own? She remembered too well the sordid condition of these poor little ones; how many things they wanted; how shabby were their little wardrobes; how thin their winter frocks; how bitterly Miriam complained of the cold, and how Bobbie cried when his chilblains hurt him! While the others were singing and laughing and making merry on board the "Sea-Gull," and Jane's very round cheeks got rounder and browner and her eyes blacker and more staring, and people said to themselves, "What a commonplace, careless sort of little girl that is and what an uninteresting face she has," they little guessed that Jane's heart was full of care, that she was thinking of Bobbie and Miriam and the things that might be done for their happiness if only she was the possessor of five pounds.