“Don't spoil that bush, Ellen sets a lot by it,” said Fanny. “What makes you act so, Andrew Brewster?” Then she lowered her voice. “She wants to know if she can have her pay to-night,” she whispered.
“I 'ain't got a cent,” replied Andrew, in a dogged, breathless voice.
“You 'ain't been to the bank to-day, then?”
“No, I 'ain't.”
Fanny still suspected nothing. She was, in fact, angry with the dressmaker for insisting upon her pay in such a fashion. “I never heard of such a thing as her wantin' to be paid every night,” she whispered, angrily, “and I'd tell her so, if I wasn't afraid she'd think we couldn't pay her. I'd never have had her; I'd had Miss Patch, if I'd know she'd do such a mean thing, but, as it is, I don't know what to do. I 'ain't got but a dollar and seventy-three cents by me. You 'ain't got enough to make it up?”
“No, I 'ain't.”
“Well, all is, I've got to tell her that it ain't convenient for me to pay her to-night, and she shall have it all together to-morrow night, and to-morrow you'll have to go to the bank and take out the money, Andrew. Don't forget it.”
“Well,” said Andrew.
Fanny retreated, and he heard her high voice explaining to Miss Higgins. He tore his way through the clinging sweetbrier bushes and ran with an unsteady, desperate gait down to the orchard behind his mother's home, and flung himself at full length in the dewy grass under the trees with all the abandon, under stress of fate, of a child.