"Whose shilling is this on my desk?" inquired Mr. Ashley of Samuel Lynn, one morning towards the close of the summer.  
"I cannot tell thee," was the reply of the Quaker. "I know nothing of it."
 
"It is none of mine, to my knowledge," remarked Mr. Ashley.
 
"What shilling is that on the master's desk?" repeated Samuel Lynn to William when he returned into his own room, where William was.
 
"I put a shilling on the desk this morning," replied William. "I found it in the waste-paper basket."
 
"Thee go in, then, and tell the master."
 
William did so. "The shilling rolled out of the waste-paper basket, sir," said he, entering the counting-house and approaching Mr. Ashley.
 
Mr. Ashley was exact in his accounts. He had missed no shilling, and he did not think it was his. "What should bring a shilling in the waste-paper basket?" he asked. "It may have rolled out of your own pocket."
 
William could have smiled at the remark. A shilling out of his pocket! "Oh, no, sir, it did not."
 
Mr. Ashley sat looking earnestly at William—as the latter fancied. In reality he was buried deep in his own thoughts. But William felt uncomfortable under the survey, and his face flushed to a glow. Why should he feel uncomfortable? What should cause the flush?
 
This. Since Janey's death, some months ago now, their circumstances had been more straitened than ever; of course, there had been expenses attending it, and Mrs. Halliburton was paying them off weekly. Bread and potatoes, and a little milk, would often be their food. On the previous night Jane had a sick headache. Some tea would have been acceptable, but she had neither tea nor money in the house; and she was firm in her resolution not to purchase on trust. On this morning early, when William rose, he found his mother down before him, at her work as usual. Her head felt better, she said; it might get quite well if she had only some tea; but she had not, and—there was an end of it. William went out, wishing (in the vague profitless manner that he might have wished for Aladdin's lamp) that he had only a shilling to some for her. When, half an hour after, this shilling rolled out of the waste-paper basket, as he was shaking it in Mr. Ashley's counting-house, a strong temptation—not to take it, but to wish that he might take it, that it was not wrong to take it—rushed over him. He put it down on the desk and turned from it—turned from the temptation, for the shilling seemed to his fingers. The remembrance of this wish—it sounded to him like a dishonest one—had brought the vivid colour to his face, under what he thought was Mr. Ashley's . That gentleman observed it.
 
"What are you turning red for?"
 
This crowned all. William's face changed to .
 
Mr. Ashley was surprised. He came to the conclusion that some mystery must be connected with the shilling—something wrong. He to it. "Why do you look confused?" he resumed.
 
"It was only at my own thoughts, sir."
 
"What are they? Let me hear them."
 
William hesitated. "I would rather not tell them, sir."
 
"But I would rather you did." Mr. Ashley quietly, as usual; but there lay command in the quietest tone of Mr. Ashley's.
 
had been upon the Halliburtons from their earliest childhood. In that manufactory Mr. Ashley was William's master, and he believed he had no resource but to comply with his desire. William was of a remarkably nature; and if he had to impart a thing, he did not do it by halves, although it might tell against himself.
 
"When I found that shilling this morning, sir, the thought came over me to wish it was mine—to wish that I might take it without doing ill. The thought did not come over me to take it," he added, raising his eyes to Mr. Ashley's, "only to wish that it was not wrong to do so. When you looked at me so earnestly, sir, I fancied you could see what my thoughts had been. And they were not thoughts."
 
"Did you ever take money that was not yours?" asked Mr. Ashley, after a pause.
 
William looked surprised. "No, sir, never."
 
Mr. Ashley paused again. "I have known children help themselves to halfpence and pence, and think it little crime."
 
The boy shook his head. "We have been taught better than that, sir. And, besides the crime, money taken in that way would bring us no good, only trouble. It could not ."
 
"Tell me why you think that."
 
"My mother has always taught us that a bad action can never prosper in the end."
 
"I suppose you the shilling for marbles; or for sweetmeats?"
 
"Oh no, sir. It was not for myself that I wished it."
 
"Then for whom? For what?"
 
This caused William's face to flush again. Mr. Ashley questioned till he drew from him the particulars—how that he had wished to buy some tea, and why he had wished it.
 
"I have heard," remarked Mr. Ashley, after listening, "that you have many privations to put up with."
 
"It is true, sir. But we don't so much care for them if we only can put up with them. My mother says she knows better days will be in store for us, if we only bear on patiently. I am sure we boys ought to do so, if she can. It is worse for her than for us."
 
There ensued another searching question from Mr. Ashley. "Have you ever, when alone in the egg-house, amidst its thousands of eggs, been to pocket a few to carry home?"
 
For one moment William suffered a flash of to cross his . The next his eyes filled with tears. He felt deeply hurt.
 
"No, sir, I have not. I hope you do not fear that I am capable of it?"
 
"No, I do not," said Mr. Ashley. "Your father was a clergyman, I think I have heard?"
 
"He was intended for a............