THE SEXTON'S COFFER. 47 



kins had been in the habit of consigning to a little box all the 

 odd shillings and sixpences given him from time to time by 

 strangers to whom he had shown the church and monuments ; 

 and though of late hardly pinched, nothing would tempt him 

 to take a penny from this little hoard, which he had set aside 

 as the orphan's portion. 



The casket in which the good sexton kept this precious 

 treasure was suitable to his calling, as well as to the means by 

 which it had been got together. It was a small oaken box 

 made out of the fragments of an old coffin, and rudely carved 

 in imitation of his favourite Tornkins' Tomb. An hour or 

 two before he died, he put this box, with its contents, amount- 

 ing then to eleven pounds three shillings and sixpence, into 

 Tim's hand; and gave him, with his last blessing, a charge 

 (though this was little needed) to keep in decent order three 

 humble graves, those of his young parents, with that of their 

 old father so soon to be dug beside them; and, above all, 

 never to neglect the ancient monument of his namesake, Sir 

 Timothy Tomkins. 



Though the orphan boy felt, desolately, that with his last rela- 

 tion and friend he had lost the only home of his solitary heart, 

 he still continued to abide beneath the roof under which he 

 and his grandfather had, as lodgers, occupied a room for many 

 years. The old woman whose miserable cottage they had 

 shared was still glad enough to receive from the boy the weekly 

 stipend so long paid by his grandfather, with an addition for 



