"What can it mean?" she exclaimed, half aloud. "I paid her ten shillings more than a month ago!" Then she looked more closely at the card to see if this ten shillings had been put down to her account. But there was no writing except that done by the young man. He had put down the three shillings she had paid him, but it was clearly stated on the card that she was to pay two pounds for the watch, and in the second column of the card stating the balance still owing, "thirty-seven shillings" had been set down.
Fanny did not master these facts all at once. Instead of sweeping the room, she stood near the dressing-table conning her card, and was still standing there when the door opened and her mistress came in. She put the card hastily into her pocket just as the lady said—
"Fanny, what are you doing? You came here twenty minutes ago to sweep the room, and you have not begun it yet."
Fanny picked up her broom and bustled about now, and the lady left her sweeping vigorously. She had not left the room many minutes when the broom went down, and Fanny once more had the card out to examine, wondering and puzzling why the ten shillings she had paid had not been acknowledged. Little as she knew of business, she remembered that, whenever she paid the rent at home, the landlord always set down in the book the sum that was paid, and why should not her ten shillings be set down on the card in the same way?
It was a puzzle she could not solve, and she took up the broom again. But her mind was so full of anxiety concerning the ten shillings that she failed to see where flue and dust had collected in the corners, and under the furniture, so shortly after the broom and brushes were carried downstairs Fanny was told to take them back again and sweep the room properly.
This made her angry. "I have swept it once," she muttered. But she knew her mistress would be obeyed, and so she sullenly went back to do her work over again, her mind still full of the card and the ten shillings.
This time she was determined to have everything out of its place, and swung her broom and brushes about with such vigour that a few minutes afterwards a crash resounded through the house. A water-jug she had been told to be particularly careful of was broken in a dozen pieces. The lady came running upstairs, her worst fears confirmed when she saw the pieces of broken crockery lying scattered on the floor.
"Fanny, I asked you, when you came, to be very careful of that jug, as I set great store by it because of the friend who made me a present of the toilet-set many years ago. The jug was the only thing left of the original gift, and now that is broken!"
The lady spoke almost mournfully as she looked at her shattered treasure. Then she glanced at Fanny's angry, defiant face. But there was no sign of sorrow there, as she muttered—
"I didn't do it on purpose."