Her  husband,  the  deceased  merchant's  son,  crawled  up
stealthily, to  the  door  and  sat  there.  He  saw  the  merchant
and  the  woman  sitting  together  and  eating  the  sweetmeats,
and  when  they  had  eaten  as  much  as  they  \vished,  he  heard
the  merchant  ask  her  to  show  him  the  broken  bracelet,
saying  that  perhaps  he  could  get  it  mended.  The  woman
gave  him  the  gold  pieces,  on  examining  which  he  found
the  late  merchant's  list,  and  pulling  this  out,  he  read  it,
and  looked  very  much  surprised.  Noticing  the  expression
of  surprise  on  his  face,  the  woman  asked  him  what  was
the  matter.
The  merchant  said,  "  Your  husband  was  a  very  unfortu-
nate man.  Gamblinc; !  Gambling !  How  foolish !  Clever
idea  of  the  old  merchant ! "

"  How  do  you  know  ?   What  idea  ? "  inquired  the  woman.
"Why,  this  paper  tells  me  so,"  replied  the  merchant.
"  Everything  is  written  here.  It  appears  that  your  father-
in-law  was  a  very  wealthy  man,  as  we  all  thought  him  to
be,  but  were  afterwards  assured  that  he  was  not.  He  was
afraid  to  reveal  all  his  wealth  to  his  son,  your  husband,
lest  the  gambler  should  speculate  with  it  and  lose  every-
thing ;  and  so  he  dissembled  matters.  He  pretended  that
he  was  worth  so  much  money  only  (mentioning  a  small
amount),  and  hid  the  rest,  the  great  bulk  of  his  wealth.
You  will  find  the  different  hiding-places  of  this  gold  and
treasure   in  the   ground-floor   of  your  hugband's   house.
