“Eh, it’s bonnie!” she had said, adding with a little sigh, “It’s a gran’ thing to gie pleasure to folk.”
Lucy had got a nice cambric handkerchief with an “M” in the corner, tied up with a piece of red ribbon, which was to be Mrs. Morison’s own Christmas-box. It was all that it was reasonable to give to a servant who had been only two months in the house, to say nothing of the fact that Lucy was anxious to spend little this year, and had sent no Christmas gift save what was taken out of her own stores or of her own manufacture.
But Lucy wondered whether she could not do something more.
A bright idea seized her. Mrs. Morison’s next month’s wage would not fall due till just after the New Year. Why shouldn’t Lucy advance it to her now? That would not impoverish Lucy, who had the money in her purse, and yet it might be a real neighbourly kindness.
She laid down her pen, sprang up and hurried to the kitchen, which was pervaded by festive smells of spice and stuffing herbs.
“Mrs. Morison,” she said, “as your month’s wages are due just after the New Year, I should like to advance them to you now. Most of us spend a little extra at this season, and as you haven’t been earning money for some time, you may not have much cash ready at hand. For one does not care to disturb one’s little investments to buy Christmas cards or comforters.”
She laid on the table a sovereign and a little silver.
“Oh, ma’am,” cried Mrs. Morison, “you’re far ow’re kind! You shouldn’t ha’ thought o’ sic a thing. ’Deed, there is a thing or two one would like to do, though there’s no many carin’ for me now. An’ you gave me my last month’s money down on the vera day, an’ it came in handy when my cousin’s wife called. I was glad to have a bit to help her with, poor body, for they’d been kind to me, and they’ve got a cripple child, and some of their customers are slow in paying bills. There’s a mighty differ between people, as I’ve often heard my poor husband say.”
Lucy went back to her letter as light-hearted and elate as we always feel after doing a trifling kindness. She confided it all to her letter to Charlie—told him why she had interrupted her writing, and how very pleased Mrs. Morison had been, and how nicely she always spoke about “the master.” She added that she should finish her letter on the evening of Christmas Day after the visitors had gone, when she could tell him how everything had passed off. “So it will seem almost as if we had had Christmas together after all.” She had just written this when Mrs. Morison came into the parlour, saying,
“Please, ma’am, you won’t mind if I go out for a little? I sha’n’t be gone more than half-an-hour. It won’t ill-convenience you?”