“You have no right to ask, Miss Scrimp. But having nothing to conceal, I will reply—to Mr. Legare’s, on Fifth-avenue.”
“Sakes alive. What did them grand folks want of you?”
“To take tea with them, and to purchase a few drawings of mine for a thousand dollars!” said Hattie, well knowing this last stroke would almost annihilate Miss Scrimp.
“Sakes alive! you’re joking!” screamed Miss Scrimp, snatching up the hand-lamp she had left on the hall table.
“Does that look like a joke?” asked Hattie, and she placed the thousand-dollar check which Mr. Legare had handed to her after tea, right under Miss Scrimp’s cross-eyes.
“Mercy on me! You’ll never go the bindery no more, will you?”
“Yes, I shall go there to my work in the morning, just as I always do,” said Hattie, and she was off up stairs before Miss Scrimp could ask another question.
“Well, well! Wonders will never stop a-comin’!” ejaculated Miss Scrimp. “If I hadn’t seen her go in the carriage and come in the carriage, and seen Mr. W—— help her out, I wouldn’t have believed my eyes. One thousand dollars—in a real check, too—I knew it soon as I saw it. Aren’t I dreamin’?”
She actually bit her finger to see if she was awake or not.
Then she sighed.