Mrs. Brown went to bed as soon as she reached home, and she had to spend the whole of the next day there; but no word passed her lips about Fanny and her watch, and, wisely or unwisely, she said no word to her husband that the girl had bought one.
[CHAPTER II]
ELIZA
"IF you please, ma'am, mother says if 'Liza Brown isn't going to be nursemaid at the Vicarage, couldn't you send our Polly? She's bigger than 'Liza," added the girl, looking up at her former teacher as if to challenge any contradiction of this assertion.
Miss Martin, the teacher of the National School, was silent with amazement as she listened to the proposal. But she had long wanted to have a word with her former scholar, Jessie Collins, and this was too good an opportunity to be lost, and so, instead of expressing the surprise she felt, she simply looked the girl over in her shabby fine frock, and said—
"Surely your mother must know that I do not choose the Vicarage servants, Jessie? And I have not heard that Eliza Brown was going for more than a month, to help with the children while they are away at the seaside."
Jessie nodded. "Yes, that's it," she said. "But 'Liza can't go; her mother can't afford to buy her the new frocks. But mother will get Polly a nice lot of new things!" and Jessie glanced complacently at her own fine frock as she spoke.
"I have not heard anything about this, Jessie!" said her teacher; "but I am sure of this, that the question of new frocks would be of far less importance to the Vicar and Mrs. Parsons, than the character of the girl they chose to be with the children," said Miss Martin, looking earnestly at Jessie as she spoke.
"Well, nobody can't say a word against our Polly!" said Jessie, in a defiant tone.
"Polly is a quiet, steady girl; and I wish you were like her," said her teacher. "Are you in service now, Jessie?" she suddenly asked.