"Hopemaydropdead, my dear, if it isn't," Mrs. Watts remarked, running her words into each other in the volubility of her protestation; "hopemayneverstiragainfromhere, if t'isn't, Miss Gray! 'Mattie's father,' I says. 'Yes,' he says; 'is that so very wonderful?' And I says, 'Yes it is, arter all this time ago.' And then he asks all manner of questions, which I didn't see the good of answering, and so was werry ignorant, my dear, until he said he'd give me a suverin to find you out. I says, 'I'd try for a five pun note, for you was a long way off, and it'd be a trouble to look arter you.' And he says, 'I'll take that trouble,' and I didn't see the pull of that, knowing he was anxious like, and fancying that five pounds wouldn't ruin him, so I held out. And then he looked at his watch, and said he'd come again, which he never did, as I'm an honest ooman."
"How long was this ago?"
"Two months."
"What kind of a man was he?"
"Oh! a little ugly bloke enough—not too well dressed. Your father won't turn out to be a duke or markis, if he ever turns up agin and brings me my five pounds."
"But you will not tell him where I live?—he may be a bad, cruel man—my mother ran away from him because he treated her ill, I have heard her say. Oh! don't tell him where I live—I am happy and contented here."
Mrs. Watts brightened up with a new idea. "You must make it a five pun note, then, instead of him, and I'll tell him I can't find yer when he comes back to take you home with him. You've saved money, I daresay, by this time, and five pounds ain't much to stand."
Mattie recovered her composure when it came to the money test; there was a motive for Mrs. Watts' appearance there, she thought; after all it was an idle story, a foolish scheme to extort money, which Mattie saw through now.
"I shall not give you any money—not five pence, Mrs. Watts."
"Leave it alone, then," was the sharp reply; "you can't leave here, and I'll bring him to you, if he ever comes agin. I didn't come to get money out of yer, but to keep my eye upon you for your father's sake. And you'll never take a step away from this place, right or left, but what I'll know it—there's too many on us about here for you to steal away."