"Bring the laces up to my apartment," said the lady, with as indifferent an air as she could assume.
When they were once safe within the locked room, Mrs. Vance turned furiously on the old lace-vender.
"Did I not tell you not to come here again?" she said. "I have nothing else to give you."
"Oh, Mrs. Vance, don't say that," whined the old crone, piteously; "I did not mean to come back, I did not indeed, but I am so poor and the gold you gave me is all gone."
"Liar! there was enough to last you a year," said Mrs. Vance, angrily.
"Oh, no, ma'am—not with my old man down with the rheumatism, and all my starving children around me. The money all went for medicine, food and clothes. It melted away like the new-fallen snow," whined Haidee. "So I said to myself, I will go back, I will tell the kind lady how poor I am and she will give me more money."
"I told you I had no more to give," almost shrieked Mrs. Vance in her desperation. "The money I gave you was presented to me by Mr. Lawrence, and he expected it would last me a long while. I am a poor woman, living here on the rich man's bounty, and I have nothing more for you—absolutely nothing!"
"Oh! but the pretty lady is mistaken," said Haidee, doggedly. "She has money, or if not she has jewels."
"Would you rob me of my few jewels, you base old wretch?"
"Necessity knows no law," retorted the old creature, grinning hideously. "I must have help for my sick husband and starving children. If you will not help me I must go to Mr. Lawrence or to Mr. Darling."