“Yes,” said the woman surlily.
“Quick, then; get your things and go. I will bring you the dress and jacket.”
“Ain’t I to say good-bye to Miss Mary?”
“No,” said Mrs Riversley firmly. “Now go.”
The woman stood biting the side of one of her fingers for a few moments, and seemed to hesitate; but the rustle of the new bank-notes as Mrs Riversley laid them upon the table and placed a paperweight upon them decided her, and in an incredibly short time she stood once more in the room, in her best clothes, and with a bulky bundle tied up in an old Paisley shawl.
Five minutes later she had received the money without a word being spoken on either side, and was standing just out of sight of the cottage, by the stream, hugging the bundle to her with one hand, and gnawing at the side of her finger.
“What a fool I was!” she muttered viciously. “She’d have given double if I’d pressed her, and I’m put off now with a beggarly thirty pound a year. I’ve a good mind to go back.”
She took a few steps in the direction of the cottage, but stopped with a grim chuckle.
“Thirty pound a year regular for doing nothing is better than ten pound and lots of work. Perhaps we should only quarrel, for she’s a hard one when she’s up. But I might have had more.”
She stood thinking for a few moments.