Grace has now reached home again, blessing her overruling stars to have escaped notice so entirely both in going and returning; for the mother was hard at washing near the well, having got in half an hour before, and father has not yet left off digging in his garden.  So she crept up stairs quietly, put away her Sunday best, and is just dropping on her knees beside her truckle-bed, to speak of all her sorrows to her Heavenly friend, and to thank him for the kindness He had raised her in an earthly one.  She then, with no small trepidation, took out of her tucker, just below those withered snow-drops, the crumpled bit of paper that held Jonathan’s parting gift.  It was surprising how her tucker heaved; she could hardly get at the parcel.  She wanted to look at that half-crown; not that she feared it was a bad one, or was curious about coins, or felt any pleasure in possessing such a sum:  but there was such a don’t-know-what connected with that new half-crown, which made her long to look at it; so she opened the paper—­and found its golden fellows!  O noble heart!  O kind, generous, unselfish—­yes, beloved Jonathan!  But what is she to do with the sovereigns?  Keep them?  No, she cannot keep them, however precious in her sight as proofs of deep affection; but she will call as soon as possible, and give them back, and insist upon his taking them, and keeping them too—­for her, if no otherwise.  And the dear innocent girl was little aware herself how glad she felt of the excuse to call so soon again at Hurstley.

Meantime, for safety, she put the money in her Bible.

What hallowed gold was that?  Gained by honest industry, saved by youthful prudence, given liberally and unasked, to those who needed, and could not pay again; with a delicate consideration, an heroic essay at concealment, a voluntary sacrifice of self, of present pleasure, passion, and affection.  And there it lies, the little store, hidden up in Grace’s Bible.  She has prayed over it, thanked over it, interceded over it, for herself, for it, for others.  How different, indeed, from ordinary gold, from common sin-bought mammon; how different from that unblest store, which Roger Acton covets; how purified from meannesses, and separate from harms!  This is of that money, the scarcest coins of all the world, endued with all good properties in heaven and in earth, whereof it had been written, “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.”

Such alone are truly riches—­well-earned, well-saved, well-sanctified, well-spent.  The wealthiest of European capitalists—­the Croesus of modern civilization—­may be but a pauper in that better currency, whereof a sample has been shown in the store of Jonathan Floyd.

CHAPTER XV.

ANOTHER DISCOVERY, AND THE EARNEST OF GOOD THINGS.

“DAME, here’s one o’ Ben’s gallipots he flung away:  it’s naught but honey, dame—­marked so—­no crock of gold; don’t expect it; no such thing; luck like that isn’t for such as me:  though, being as it is, the babes may like it, with their dry bread:  open it, good-wife:  I hope the water mayn’t ha’ spoilt it.”