"GOOD morning, miss. I've come from Judds' the watchmakers." And the speaker, a shabbily dressed young man, drew a book and pencil from his pocket as he spoke.
"Do you want some more money for my watch?" asked Fanny, with a gasp, and drawing the door close behind her. "The missis is in the kitchen," she whispered.
"All right. We don't want to see the missis about this business, do we? Three shillings, if you please." And when Fanny took it out of her pocket, he wrote the amount on a card and handed it to her as he took the money. "This is your first payment. I shall call every month, unless you send the money to our place before I come."
"It isn't the first payment," said Fanny, quickly. "I've paid ten shillings to the lady."
"It's the first you've paid me. I haven't anything to do with money I don't receive. Good morning." And Fanny hastily put her card in her pocket as a woman selling cottons appeared.
"Oh yes, I want a reel of cotton," said Fanny loud enough for her mistress to hear.
"Who is at the door, Fanny?" asked the lady at the same moment.
"I'm buying some cotton and things of a woman," answered Fanny, thinking how lucky it was the woman happened to come at this moment. When she returned to the kitchen, her mistress said—
"It would be better for you to buy your buttons and cottons at the shop, Fanny. The things women sell about the street are never very good—hardly worth using, in fact."
Fanny made no reply, but having put the saucepan on for the pudding, went upstairs to sweep one of the bedrooms, and the moment she got there she took the card out of her pocket to examine it. At the bottom a slip of pink paper was attached, and on it was printed, "No money is to be paid to the person who delivers the watch." Fanny read this over two or three times.