It was just when Mrs. Crook had finally decided that she had a good two-and-twenty years of life to reckon upon, that her servant, Fanny, managed to upset all the feelings of satisfaction with which she looked forward thereto. She brought in the tea-tray to the minute, but as she placed it on the table, Mrs. Crook noticed that the girl's eyes were full of tears, and she heard a smothered sob.
"What is the matter with you, Fanny?" she asked, testily. "Toothache again, I suppose? But if it is, you need not be a baby, and cry about it. Girls are so frightened of themselves, that if a little finger aches they go sniffing and crying about a house, and making everybody miserable!"
Poor Fanny had lately borne a great deal of pain with much patience, and had gone about her work as usual, when her nights had been sadly disturbed, and she had been unable to take a proper amount of food. Knowing that her mistress would be more likely to grumble than to sympathise she had said little about her sufferings, and Mrs. Crook had either been, or pretended to be, ignorant of them, until the girl asked permission to go to a dentist.
Happily, she had obtained relief, and was able to answer:
"My face is all right, thank you, ma'am."
"Then what is the matter? I suppose you think you have something to cry about. If you have no troubles, you make them. You don't see me cry about every little thing, do you?"
Fanny could not call to mind any occasion when she had seen her mistress shed tears, and she said so. Nevertheless, this fact did not stop the flow of her own, as she answered:
"It is not about myself that I am crying; it is for Miss Lawton. They say she is dying. And she is so good and so young—only twenty-two, three years older than I am. They say she never had a day's illness in her life before; and this is inflammation, that came on all at once, and there's no hope of her getting better. Mother used to say to me sometimes, 'Young folks may die soon, old ones must.' But I never thought Miss Lawton was a bit likely to be called away. What a blessing she is ready! There will be plenty to grieve after her, though she does not fret about herself, but is just willing to live and work for God, if it please Him to spare her, or to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better."
Fanny's tears prevented more words. Miss Lawton was very dear to the girl's heart. She had been her Sunday-school teacher, and if her mistress would have allowed it, Fanny would have remained a member of the select class which the young lady taught, after she went to service.
But Mrs. Crook ridiculed the idea of a grown-up girl going to a Sunday-school, so Fanny had to content herself with an occasional sight of the dear young lady, to whom she owed so much. It was a comfort that Mrs. Crook attended the same church, and that in service the girl would still worship under the same roof as her parents, and the friends who were dearest to her.