'What is it, father?' inquired a young girl, approaching him. 'Isn't the
gruel good?'

'It's good enough,' replied the man; 'but here's something in it: it's a
shilling, I believe.'

'It's a guinea, I declare!' exclaimed the girl, as she took the coin
from him and examined it nearer the light.

'A guinea!' repeated the man; 'well, that's the first bit of luck I've
had these seven years or more. It never could have come when we wanted
it worse. Shew it us here, Mary.'

'But it's not ours, father,' said Mary. 'I paid away the last shilling
we had for the meal, and here's the change.'

'God has sent it us, girl! He saw our distress, and he sent it us in His
mercy!' said the man, grasping the piece of gold with his thin, bony
fingers.

'It must be Mr Benjamin's,' returned she. 'He must have dropped it into
the meal-tub that stands by the counter.'

'How do you know that?' inquired the man with an impatient tone and a
half-angry glance. 'How can you tell how it came into the gruel? Perhaps
it was lying at the bottom of the basin, or at the bottom of the
sauce-pan. Most likely it was.'

'O no, father,' said Mary: 'it is long since we had a guinea.'