Ethel dropped the tray some inches upon the table with a crash. Her lower lip dropped. Her eyes were wide.
Mrs. McMahon looked down upon her daughter—she was slightly taller than Ethel when she stood erect—with a kindly and compassionate smile, as one looks at a beloved but tiresome and fretful child.
"I suppose," she said, "that a little sum of two thousand five hundred francs would be sufficient to pay the rent?"
Ethel gasped.
"I suppose," Mrs. McMahon continued, "that you would regard a return of a hundred pounds for an investment of ten fairly remunerative?"
Ethel murmured something or other, she hardly knew what.
Then Mrs. McMahon condescended to explain. Her eagerness burst through, her high comedy manner vanished.
"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she cried, "the luck has turned at last! After all these years! Look! look!"
With shaking hands she held out some papers to Ethel. A typewritten sheet was headed, "Königlich-Preussiche-Klassen-Lotterie," and stated in French that Mrs. McMahon, who had purchased the eighth of a ticket in the famous Berlin lottery, had thereby won a sum of 2,000 Marks German, or—was added in parentheses—2,500 francs. A pink draft upon the Crédit Lyonnais was enclosed for the sum.
"Oh, mother!" Ethel gasped, in the sudden shock, "two thousand five hundred francs! A hundred pounds!" And, quite forgetful of her former strictures, she hugged the trembling old lady again and again. "We are rich! we are rich!" she cried, and a vision crossed her mind of an inexpensive hat she had but lately seen in the Rue de Rivoli—a perfect duck of a hat!