earnestness the nature of the secret."]




CHAPTER XVI

It is an article of belief with some old-fashioned people that children
should have no secrets from their parents, and, though not a model father
in every way, Mr. Vickers felt keenly the fact that his daughter was
keeping something from him. On two or three occasions since the date of
sailing of the _Fair Emily_ she had relieved her mind by throwing out
dark hints of future prosperity, and there was no doubt that, somewhere
in the house, she had a hidden store of gold. With his left foot glued
to the floor he had helped her look for a sovereign one day which had
rolled from her purse, and twice she had taken her mother on expensive
journeys to Tollminster.

Brooding over the lack of confidence displayed by Selina, he sat on the
side of her bed one afternoon glancing thoughtfully round the room. He
was alone in the house, and now, or never, was his opportunity. After an
hour's arduous toil he had earned tenpence-halfpenny, and, rightly
considering that the sum was unworthy of the risk, put it back where he
had found it, and sat down gloomily to peruse a paper which he had found
secreted at the bottom of her box.

Mr. Vickers was but a poor scholar, and the handwriting was deplorable.
Undotted "i's" travelled incognito through the scrawl, and uncrossed "t's"
passed themselves off unblushingly as "l's." After half an hour's
steady work, his imagination excited by one or two words which he had