Mather," said she. "I don't believe my mother will want me to go with
you any more."

Just then the bell rang. Martha went crying to her seat, and the
others thought it was on account of her toothache. Patience kept back
her tears. She was forming a desperate resolution. When recess came,
she got permission to go to the store which was quite near, and she
bought a card of peppermints with the Squire's sixpence. She had
pulled out the palm-leaf strand on her way, thrusting it into her
pocket guiltily. She felt as if she were committing sacrilege. These
sixpences, which Squire Bean bestowed upon worthy scholars from time
to time, were ostensibly for the purpose of book-marks. That was the
reason for the palm-leaf strand. The Squire took the sixpences to the
blacksmith who stamped them with B's, and then, with his own hands, he
adjusted the palm-leaf.

The man who kept the store looked at the sixpence curiously, when
Patience offered it.

"One of the Squire's sixpences!" said he.

"Yes; it's mine." That was the argument which Patience had set forth
to her own conscience. It was certainly her own sixpence; the Squire
had given it to her--had she not a right to do as she chose with it?

The man laughed; his name was Ezra Tomkins, and he enjoyed a joke. He
was privately resolving to give that sixpence in change to the
old Squire and see what he would say. If Patience had guessed his
thoughts--