“An hour will give me ample time to make all needful preparations for the change.”
“It is five o’clock now. Then at six precisely the carriage shall call for you. We dine at half-past, when you will meet my family. Now, about this account; it is not a very large one, Miss Douglas,” he said, smiling, and turning to the books.
After a moment, he continued, with some hesitation:
“Allow me to give you a check on account. You may wish to make some purchases before leaving New York.”
Brownie drew herself up like a little princess.
“If you will please pay me what I have earned, sir, it will be all I require, thank you.”
He ran his eye quickly over the figures, and then paid her just sixteen dollars and a half, the amount of her earnings for three weeks and two days.
“Thank you; that is correct,” she said, after counting it; then, with a bow, she withdrew, a strange feeling of pride and independence in her heart that for three weeks she had supported herself by the labor of her own hands.
True, it would take about fourteen of it to pay for her board and washing, leaving her only two dollars and fifty cents surplus.
She was to receive a salary of five hundred dollars a year, and she smiled to think how large the sum looked to her now and besides there were her expenses and the opportunity of a year of travel in charming Europe.