“On the window directly facing his bed.”

“Gazing at what?”

“Sky—­no, the walls of our house.”

“Be more definite; at the old side door through which he could see the closet shelves where this old tureen stood.  During the time you had been gone, he had realized his sinking condition, and, afraid of the nurse he saw advancing down the street, summoned all his strength and rushed with his treasure across the alley-way and put it in the first hiding-place his poor old eyes fell on.  He may have been going to give it to you; but you had company, you remember, in here, and he may have heard voices.  Anyhow, we know that he put it in the tureen because—­” here I lifted the lid—­“because—­” I was almost as excited and trembling and beside myself as they were—­“because it is here now.”

They looked, then gazed in each other’s face and bowed their heads.  Silence alone could express the emotion of that moment.  Then with a burst of inarticulate cries, Miss Charity rose and solemnly began dancing up and down the great room.  Her sister looked on with grave disapproval till the actual nature of the find made its way into her bewildered mind, then she reached over and plunged her hand into the tureen and drew out the five bonds which she clutched first to her breast and then began proudly to unfold.

“Fifty thousand dollars!” she exclaimed.  “We are rich women from to-day,” and as she said it I saw the shrewdness creep beck into her eyes and the long powerful features take on the expressive character which they had so pitifully lacked up to the moment.  I realized that I had been the witness of a miracle.  The reason, shattered, or, let us say, disturbed by one shock, had been restored by another.  The real Miss Thankful stood before me.  Meanwhile the weaker sister, dancing still, was uttering jubilant murmurs to which her feet kept time with almost startling precision.  But as the other let the words I have recorded here leave her lips, she came to a sudden standstill and approaching her lips to Miss Thankful’s ear said joyfully: 

“We must tell—­oh,” she hastily interpolated as she caught her sister’s eyes and followed the direction of her pointing finger, “we have not thanked our little friend, our good little friend who has done us such an inestimable service.”  I felt her quivering arms fall round my neck, as Miss Thankful removed the tureen and in words both reasonable and kind expressed the unbounded gratitude which she herself felt.

“How came you to think?  How came you to care enough to think?” fell from her lips as she kissed me on the forehead.  “You are a jewel, little Miss Saunders, and some day—­”

But I need not relate all that she said or all the extravagant things Miss Charity did, or even my own delight, so much greater even than any I had anticipated, when I first saw this possible ending of my suddenly inspired idea.  However, Miss Thankful’s words as we parted at the door struck me as strange, showing that it would be a little while yet before the full balance of her mind was restored.