"And not git me rint?"
"You shall have your money—every cent of it. Put the furniture back, and you shall have your due just as soon as you have done it," said Fanny, as haughtily as though she had been a millionaire.
Mr. O'Shane looked at her, and seemed to be petrified with astonishment. The deed he was doing, harsh and cruel as it was, he regarded as a work of necessity. Though he owned the house occupied by Mrs. Kent, and another in which he lived himself with two other families, both of them were mortgaged for half their value, and he was obliged to pay interest on the money he owed for them. He certainly could not afford to lose his rent, to which he was justly entitled. He had indulged his tenant for a year, and nothing but the apparent hopelessness of obtaining what was due had tempted him to this cruel proceeding. Nothing but starvation in his own family could justify a landlord in turning a mother with a dying child out of the house. He looked at Fanny with astonishment when she promised to pay him, but he was sceptical.
"Why don't you put back the furniture?" demanded Fanny, impatiently.
"It's meself that would be glad to do that same," replied he. "Would you let me see the color of your money, miss?"
"Put the things back, and you shall have your money as soon as you have done it," added Fanny, moving down the street. "I will be back in a few moments."
The landlord looked at her, as she walked away. He was in doubt, but there was something about the girl so different from what he had been accustomed to see in young ladies of her age, that he was strongly impressed by her words. Fanny sat down on a rock in the shade of a lone tree. Mr. O'Shane looked at her for a moment, and then decided to obey the haughty command he had received. He went to work with more energy than he had before displayed, and began to move the furniture back into the house, greatly to the surprise and delight, no doubt, of the grief-stricken mother.
Fanny counted out a hundred dollars from the stolen bills in her pocket, and returned to the house. Mr. O'Shane had by this time completed his work, and was awaiting the result.
"They be all put back, miss," said he, doubtfully.
"There is your money," replied Fanny, proudly.