“And sweetest love to her ever dear.”

Altogether the sum amounted to nine pounds, three shillings, and a farthing.

“Now for Master Gammon—­he’s heavy,” said Robert; and he made the savings of that unpretentious veteran bare.  Master Gammon had likewise written his word.  It was discovered on the blank space of a bit of newspaper, and looked much as if a fat lobworm had plunged himself into a bowl of ink, and in his literary delirium had twisted uneasily to the verge of the paper.  With difficulty they deciphered,—­

          “Complemens.”

Robert sang, “Bravo, Gammon!” and counted the hoard.  All was in copper coinage, Lycurgan and severe, and reached the sum of one pound, seventeen shillings.  There were a number of farthings of Queen Anne’s reign, and Robert supposed them to be of value.  “So that, as yet, we can’t say who’s the winner,” he observed.

Rhoda was in tears.

“Be kind to him, please, when you see him,” she whispered.  The smaller gift had touched her heart more tenderly.

“Kind to the old man!” Robert laughed gently, and tied the two hoards in separate papers, which he stowed into one box, and fixed under string.  “This amount, put all in one, doesn’t go far, Rhoda.”

“No,” said she:  “I hope we may not need it.”  She broke out:  “Dear, good, humble friends!  The poor are God’s own people.  Christ has said so.  This is good, this is blessed money!” Rhoda’s cheeks flushed to their orange-rounded swarthy red, and her dark eyes had the fervour of an exalted earnestness.  “They are my friends for ever.  They save me from impiety.  They help me, as if God had answered my prayer.  Poor pennies! and the old man not knowing where his days may end!  He gives all—­he must have true faith in Providence.  May it come back to him multiplied a thousand fold!  While I have strength to work, the bread I earn shall be shared with him.  Old man, old man, I love you—­how I love you!  You drag me out of deep ditches.  Oh, good and dear old man, if God takes me first, may I have some power to intercede for you, if you have ever sinned!  Everybody in the world is not wicked.  There are some who go the ways directed by the Bible.  I owe you more than I can ever pay.”

She sobbed, but told Robert it was not for sorrow.  He, longing to catch her in his arms, and punctilious not to overstep the duties of his post of guardian, could merely sit by listening, and reflecting on her as a strange Biblical girl, with Hebrew hardness of resolution, and Hebrew exaltation of soul; beautiful, too, as the dark women of the East.  He admitted to himself that he never could have taken it on his conscience to subdue a human creature’s struggling will, as Rhoda had not hesitated to do with Dahlia, and to command her actions, and accept all imminent responsibilities; not quailing with any outcry, or abandonment of strength, when the shock of that revelation in the vestry came violently on her.  Rhoda, seeing