When she entered the room, she unlocked a little dressing-case that
Valentine had given to her; and, emptying out of one of the trays four
sovereigns and some silver, all her savings from her own pocket-money,
wrapped them up hastily in a piece of paper, and ran down stairs again
to Patty. Zack was ill, and lonely, and miserable; longing for a friend
to sit by his bedside and comfort him--and she could not be that
friend! But Zack was also poor; she had read it in his letter; there
were many little things he wanted to pay for; he needed money--and in
that need she might secretly be a friend to him, for she had money of
her own to give away.
"My four golden sovereigns shall be the first he has," thought Madonna,
nervously taking the housemaid's offered arm at the house-door. "I will
put them in some place where he is sure to find them, and never to know
who they come from. And Zack shall be rich again--rich with all the
money I have got to give him." Four sovereigns represented quite a
little fortune in Madonna's eyes. It had taken her a long, long time to
save them out of her small allowance of pocket-money.
When they knocked at the private door of the tobacco-shop, it was
opened by the landlady, who, after hearing what their errand was from
Patty, and answering some preliminary inquiries after Zack, politely
invited them to walk into her back parlor.
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