"You did very wrong to spend it, very wrong. Those sixpences are not
given to you to spend. But I will overlook it this once."

The Squire extended the sixpence. Patience took it, with another dip
of her little skirt. Then he turned around to his desk.

Patience waited a few minutes. She did not know whether she was
dismissed or not. Finally the Squire begun to add aloud: "Five and
five are ten," he said, "ought, and carry the one."

He was adding a bill. Then Patience stole out softly. Mrs. Squire Bean
was waiting in the kitchen. She gave her a great piece of plum-cake
and kissed her.

"He didn't hurt you any, did he?" said she.

"No, ma'am," said Patience, looking with a bewildered smile at the
sixpence.

That night she tied in the palm-leaf strand again, and she put the
sixpence in her Geography-book, and she kept it so safely all her life
that her great-grandchildren have seen it.






A PLAIN CASE.