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LIFE’S LITTLE IRONIES

of Shadrach as the sailor sounded in the passage, and he entered. The boys had gone ont and had missed him, and Joanna was sitting alone.

As soon aa the first emotion of reunion between the couple hed paased, Jolliffe explained the delay as owing to a small speculative contract, which had produced good resalts.

“I was determined not to disappoint ’ee,” he said ; “and I think you'll own that I haven't !”

With this he pulled out an enormous canvas bag, full and rotund as the money-bag of the giant whom Jack slew, untied it, and shook the contents out into her lap as she sat in her low chair by the fire, A masa of guineas {there were guineas on the earth in those days) fell into ber lap with a sudden thud, weighing down her gown to the floor.

“There!” said Shadrach, complacently, “I told ’ee, dear, I’d do it; and have I done it or no?”

Somehow her face, after the first excitement of possession, did not retain ita glory.

“It is a lot of gold, indeed,” she said. “ And—is this all?

“All? Why, dear Joanna, do you know you can count to three hundred in that heap? It is a fortune !”

“Yes—yes. A fortune—judged by sea; but judged by land—”

However, she banished considerations of the money for the nonce. Soon the boys came in, and next Sunday Shadrach retarned thanks te God—this time by the more ordinary channel of the italics in the General Thanksgiving. But a few days after, when the question of investing the money arose, he remarked that she did not seem so satisfied as he had hoped.

“Well, you see, Shadrach,” she answered, “we count by hundreds; they count by thousands” (nodding tow-