"Then if Alice is so helpful to you, we must certainly try to keep her; and we must try to persuade Mamma that it would not hurt her if she came downstairs a bit too, as well as the cats."
"Oh, we'll be content with the cats at first," said Molly. "I believe I could like them a bit myself if they were more like what cats should be."
"Very well; with a little less spent on the servant and the cats, don't you think you could manage, Annie?" asked Arthur.
At length, after a good deal of consideration, she said: "Now I will tell you the whole truth of the matter. I believe, if I could pay all we owe at the shops, so that I was free to go where I liked to buy things, and did not have to pay such high prices for everything, I could manage to keep house on the income Mr. Andrews says he can allow us. But, you see, when we came here we had to deal with the same people as we did before. They expected it, because we still owed them some money, though part of the debts were paid. Then I never quite knew about things, because Hannah used to order what she liked in the way of extras. But now that I can do all that myself, I shall be able to save a good bit in the butcher's bill, and the grocer's too, and the dairy as well, for she would have new-laid eggs for everything."
"Oh, I say! Don't give us stale eggs for breakfast," said Arthur.
"As if I should think of doing such a thing!" exclaimed his sister. "But I have found out that shop eggs are about half the price I have been paying for new-laid ones, and make a pudding just as light, and so I have used them lately for cooking. Alice told me about that."
"Well done Alice! Now about these bills. If you have made up your mind to pay ready money for things, and have no more bills, I think Mr. Andrews would not mind giving us a chance to start fair and square for ourselves, and we have not had that yet."
"No, we haven't," said Molly; "and we always had to go to the most expensive shops for what we wanted, for if we ventured to go anywhere else we were sure to have the old bill we owed sent in, and the messenger who brought it was to wait for the money. Hannah knew how to manage them though. She would send a message back and an order for more things. Sometimes we did not want them, but we had to get them, to have a little peace and not let Mamma be worried."
"Poor Annie! you have had a hard time," said Arthur. "I will certainly go and see Mr. Andrews, and ask him to help us by paying off all these bills somehow. Now the best way will be to get them all together, and when I come home to-morrow I will add them up if you have got them ready, and then I shall know just how much I shall want from Mr. Andrews."
But when the next evening came, Annie had not got the bills ready. Some of the trades-people said they were in no hurry for the settlement of their account. The fact was, some of them had heard that Mr. Andrews was helping the young people, as he and his father before him had always helped the Murrays when things grew desperate. And so they thought the estate could not be so utterly exhausted as people had said it was, and they might as well keep them on their books as customers a little longer on the old methods; and Annie had been able to get only one or two small bills.