By this Prudence had got her into the morning room, deserted, for a wonder, and closed the door.
“Now,” she said tremblingly, “what is all this about, and what do you mean by coming here and making such a noise? I am sorry I sent you a cheque, but I quite forgot you told me not to, and it is all right; there is nothing wrong with it.”
“Nothin’ wrong! Wy wot d’ you take me for, a-sendin’ me a cheque as no one ’ll change?” said Mrs. Brown. “Nice conduck of a female as calls ’erself a lydy, a-sending of a pore woman to one public hafter another, an’ not one o’ the lot ’ll change the thing!”
“Let me see it,” said Prudence, bewildered.
Mrs. Brown glared rather unsteadily at the speaker for a minute, and then fumbled in her bag. After many futile dives, she at last turned out the contents on the table. There, amidst papers, a thimble, sixpence in coppers, some pawn tickets, a half-crown, a reel of cotton, a stump of blue pencil, and various other odds and ends, was the letter of Prudence, with her cheque, now very crumpled and dirty, protruding.
“Calls erself a lydy,” pursued good Mrs. Brown, “an’ sends me that!” Here she banged the cheque on the table.
Prudence, from force of habit, had crossed the cheque and marked it “not negotiable,” as the family solicitor, when first she had the handling of money, had instructed her always to do.
“I am sorry,” she said, “the cheque is crossed, and that is why they would not change it. It should be passed through a bank. If you will wait here quietly for a moment, I will write you another.”
Good Mrs. Brown at first seemed indisposed to allow Prudence to leave the room at all. “Give me my money,” she said; “I don’t want none o’ your cheques. Money down’s the thing for me!”
A vast amount of explanation was required before she seemed to grasp the sense of what the unhappy lady was saying. Then she suddenly sat down on a chair and burst into tears, much to Miss Semaphore’s alarm and distress.