regularly supplied to him. He could see green leaves too. There was an
apple-tree in the garden, and two geraniums, a fuchsia, and a tea-rose
in the window. Near the tea-rose an old woman sat in the sunshine. She
was the sailor's mother, and looked very like a tidily-kept
window-plant herself. She had a little money of her own, which gave her
a certain dignity, and her son was very good to her; and so she dwelt
in considerable comfort, dividing her time chiefly between reading in
the big Bible, knitting socks for Jack, and raising cuttings in bottles
of water. She had heard of hothouses and forcing-frames, but she did
not think much of them. She believed a bottle of water to be the most
natural, because it was the oldest method she knew of, and she thought
no good came of new-fangled ways, and trying to outdo Nature.

"'Slow and sure is best,' she said, and stuck to her own system.

"'What's that, my dear?' she asked, when the sailor came in and held up
the handkerchief. He told her.

"'You're always a-laying out your money on something or other,' said
the old lady, who took the privilege of her years to be a little testy.
'What did you give for _that_?'

"'A shilling, ma'am.'

"'Tst! tst! tst!' said the old lady, disapprovingly.

"'Now, Mother, don't shake that cap of yours off your head,' said the
sailor. 'What's a shilling? If I hadn't spent it, I should have changed
it; and once change a shilling, and it all dribbles away in coppers,
and you get nothing for it. But spend it in the lump, and you get