"What was there to find out? What has happened to alter our girl so much as all that?" asked Brown, curiously.
"Well now, I did not want to tell you myself, for I hoped Fanny would do it, as I asked her. Mind, I am not saying she is so altered since she has been away, for I suppose the selfishness was there before, only we did not see it, and there was nothing to bring it out. You see, to get Fanny nicely ready for service, with new underclothes, frocks, and aprons, cost me a pretty penny, one way and another, to say nothing of the hours I had to sit sewing to get everything ready. Well, when the Vicar's offer came for Eliza to go to the seaside to help Nurse with the children, I thought at once Fanny's first wages would come in nicely to buy what I wanted to send Eliza away neat and tidy; but when she came home for that first holiday, instead of bringing me the ten shillings, as I had hoped, she had bought a watch with it, which she wore round her neck."
"Bought a watch for ten shillings?" repeated Brown.
"Yes, she told me she had given all her first month's wages for the rubbishing thing." And Mrs. Brown could scarce restrain her tears even now, as she thought of the glittering thing as she saw it on Fanny's neck.
"I suppose you told her it was rubbish, and not worth the money she had paid for it?" said her husband.
"Wouldn't you have told her the same thing? I know you would. What should a girl like her know about buying a watch?"
Brown could scarcely help smiling at his wife's evident annoyance, and he concluded that she had said some rather hard words to Fanny, which she had taken to heart, and had grown discouraged since, as she recalled them, and then foolishly concluded that because her mother had spoken angrily, and afterwards refused to let her have the new frock, that she no longer loved her.
"I see it all now," he said, his brow clearing. "You said a few sharp words about this ten-shilling watch, and afterwards refused to let her have the new frock, and she concludes from this that, as she is away from home now, you care less for her than when she was one amongst us."
"She never could be so foolish," said Mrs. Brown.
"Well, we can set matters right with that letter of yours," replied her husband. "Instead of going to our own church to-morrow night, I will go and see Fan, and take the letter with me for her to read. The walk would be too much for you, I know—it upset you before; but it will be good for me, and I can tell her all the news, and let her feel that she is still one of us, though she may be away from home. Now, what time will you be ready to do your marketing to-night?" he asked, for he did not want to say any more about Fanny just now.