"I only want you to lend me what you have saved towards buying the new frock," interrupted her mother. "I do not ask you to give me a farthing of your wages. Thank God, your father is in good work, and whatever you can lend me, Jack shall bring back next Saturday as soon as your father gets home from work."
"Well, I can't do it, mother, for I haven't got it," answered Fanny, in a dogged tone. "Mrs. Lloyd pays such poor wages that I don't think I shall stop much longer."
"Fanny, you would never be so foolish as to leave a comfortable place like this," exclaimed Mrs. Brown, looking round the cosy kitchen, which she had already calculated in her own mind required so little hard work to keep neat and nice. "Why, this is as nice as any parlour," she said, uttering her thoughts aloud.
"Oh, it's all very well," said Fanny, with a toss of the head; "but a comfortable kitchen isn't everything, and I have heard that I can get higher wages than Mrs. Lloyd pays."
"Money is not everything, my girl. A considerate mistress, who tries to make things comfortable for her servant, and where a growing girl like you has as much to eat as she wants, may not be so easily found as you seem to suppose. Higher wages will mean harder, rougher work, very likely. Here you have just enough to keep you comfortably employed, and you have a mistress who does not mind teaching you how to do your work thoroughly."
"Oh, I have learned nearly all she can teach me now," said Fanny, with a smile, and a complacent look round her neat little kitchen.
Her mother sighed. "Well, as she has been at the trouble to teach you a good many things you could never learn at home, don't you think it would be very ungrateful to leave her so soon after you have been able to master the work and do it properly?"
"Ungrateful!" repeated Fanny. "Don't I work for every penny I get?"
"Yes, I dare say you do. Nobody keeps servants to look at, of course; but when an untrained girl, like you were, comes into a house like this, a mistress has to be at a good deal of trouble before she is of very much use. I know what it is when I have to begin teaching what I do at home. Why, it is easier to wash up tea-things than to teach a girl to do it properly, and it is the same with other things."
"Oh, well, I believe Mrs. Lloyd likes to teach girls, and to worry them too," retorted Fanny. "Of course, Eliza never gave anybody any trouble," she added, with something like a sneer.