Chapter Eighteen.
Mrs Gaff becomes a Woman of Business, and finds it awfully Hard Work.
Soon after the conversation narrated in the last chapter, the clerks in the bank of Wreckumoft were not a little interested by the entrance of a portly woman of comely appearance and large proportions. She was dressed in a gaudy cotton gown and an enormously large bonnet, which fluttered a good deal, owing as much to its own magnitude and instability as to the quantity of pink ribbons and bows wherewith it was adorned.
The woman led by the hand a very pretty little girl, whose dress was much the same in pattern, though smaller in proportion. Both woman and child looked about them with that air of uncertainty peculiar to females of the lower order when placed in circumstances in which they know not exactly how to act.
Taking pity upon them, a clerk left his perch, and going forward, asked the woman what she wanted.
To this she replied promptly, that she wanted money.
She was much flushed and very warm, and appeared to have come some distance on foot, as well as to be in a state of considerable agitation, which, however, she determinedly subdued by the force of a strong will.
“If you go to yonder rail and present your cheque,” replied the clerk kindly, “you’ll get the money.”
“Present what, young man?”