“Dear me, now, miss,” he said, “I am that glad to see you! How I wish my missis was in! Why, you have grown into quite a young lady, Miss Annie.”
“Of course,” replied Annie, “I am grown up, although I am not leaving school just yet. Please, Mr Dawson, I want you to give me—”
She took a piece of paper from her pocket and laid it on the counter. The man glanced at Mrs Shelf’s orders, and desiring a foreman to attend to them, returned to talk to Annie.
“And please,” continued the girl, her heart now jumping into her mouth, “uncle would be so much obliged if you could cash this for him.”
Dawson glanced at the cheque.
“Of course, miss,” he said. “How will you have it?”
“In gold, please,” said Annie.
“I can give you fifteen pounds in gold, miss. Will you take the rest in a five-pound note?”
Annie agreed. Two or three minutes later, with her little parcel of meat put into a basket for her, and twenty pounds in her pocket, she was riding towards the post-office.
There she dismounted, and asking for a sheet of the best note-paper, wrote a line to Lady Lushington. It ran as follows: