Page:The Story of the Treasure Seekers.djvu/218

180 "But I thought the wine people paid that," Alice said.

But the butcher said not on half-dozens they didn't. Then he said he didn't think he'd wait any longer for Father&mdash;but would Alice ask Father to write him?

Alice offered him the sherry again, but he said something about "Not for worlds!"&mdash;and then she let him out and came back to us with the shilling, and said, "How's that?" And we said "A 1."

And all the evening we talked of our fortune that we had begun to make.

Nobody came next day, but the day after a lady came to ask for money to build an orphanage for the children of dead sailors. And we saw her. I went in with Alice. And when we had explained to her that we had only a shilling and we wanted it for something else, Alice suddenly said, "Would you like some wine?"

And the lady said, "Thank you very much," but she looked surprised. She was not a young lady, and she had a mantle with beads, and the beads had come off in places&mdash;leaving a browny braid showing, and she had printed papers about the dead sailors in a sealskin bag, and the seal had come off in places, leaving the skin bare.