compliment to his rigid honesty but

  "How much is it?" asked Esther.   "It will be a shilling each there and back," replied Moses, who from his long periods of peregrination was a connoisseur in fares. "How can we afford it when I lose a morning's work into the bargain?"   "No, what talkest thou?" said Esther. "Thou art looking a few months ahead--thou deemest perhaps, I am already twelve. It will be only sixpence for me."   Moses did not disclaim the implied compliment to his rigid honesty but answered:   "Where is my head? Of course thou goest half-price. But even so where is the eighteenpence to come from?"   "But it is not eighteenpence!" ejaculated Esther with a new inspiration. Necessity was sharpening her wits to extraordinary acuteness. "We need not take return tickets. We can walk back."   "But we cannot be so long away from the mother--both of us," said Moses. "She, too, is ill. And how will the children do without thee? I will go by myself."   "No, I must see Benjy!" Esther cried.   "Be not so stiff-necked, Esther! Besides, it stands in the letter that I am to come--they do not ask thee. Who knows that the great people will not be angry if I bring thee with me? I dare say Benjamin will soon be better. He cannot have been ill long."