Brought out of peril

"I DON'T see why you should be so disagreeable about it, mother. It was my own ten shillings that I paid for the watch."

"Watch, indeed!" exclaimed her mother, as though the very word was an offence to her. "What do you know about buying a watch?—a bit of a girl in her first place. You need all the money you can earn to keep you in decent clothes, to say nothing of what you owe me for all the things I have had to buy to make you tidy, and give you a fair start in service." And Mrs. Brown almost burst into tears as her eyes fell again on the glittering silver watch her daughter was so proud to display.

Fanny was a little over sixteen, a tall, well-grown girl for her age, stout and rosy, and looking the picture of health, as she stood there telling her mother her trial month was over, that her mistress was very well satisfied with the way she had done her work, and that she was to have six pounds a year at first, a whole day's holiday once a month, and every Sunday evening to go to church.

"I am very glad to have that bit of news, Fanny," said her mother, in a more cheerful tone. "But still, I wish you had left the watch alone. I don't believe in such finery for a girl like you."

"Finery!" repeated Fanny. "Father has got a watch."

"Yes, but your father's is for use, not to dangle round his neck like that glittering thing. You've got a clock in the kitchen at your place, haven't you?" said her mother.

"To be sure we have," said Fanny, with a toss of her head. "But I'm not always in the kitchen," she added.

"Well, my girl, I dare say we shall get over it but I do feel disappointed, for I wanted you to let me have all you could spare of your wages this month for Eliza."

"For Eliza!" repeated Fanny, changing colour a little. "Is she ill again, mother?" she asked.

"No; she is better—very well for her. But Mrs. Parsons from the Vicarage came to see me yesterday, and asked if Eliza could go with the nurse and children to the seaside for a month. Our Vicar thought she might help to look after the children on the sands, and that the change would do her good too."

"Oh, mother, how kind of the Vicar and Mrs. Parsons! And what a chance for Eliza! Of course you'll let her go!"

"How can I now?" And Mrs. Brown put her apron to her eyes, for she could not keep her tears back any longer. "I spent every penny I could scrape together to send you out tidy, never thinking I should want to do the same thing for Eliza yet awhile, or that you would go and throw away your first wages on rubbish like that watch."

Fanny looked confused and defiant. Certainly, if she had known the money was likely to be wanted for such a purpose as helping her delicate sister to go to the seaside, she would not have bought the watch; but she did not like it that her mother seemed to think she had a right to claim her first wages, and she muttered something about this just as Eliza came in from school.

"Has mother told you, Fanny?" she exclaimed, after hugging and kissing her sister.

Fanny had pictured this meeting with Eliza again and again during the month she had been away, and she had thought it would be part of the day's pleasure and triumph to show her sister the grand watch she had bought. But now—well, how could she?

"Did you tell your teacher?" asked Mrs. Brown. The younger girl looked up quickly, for she noticed the change in her mother's tone.

"What is it? What is the matter, mother? Have they been to say that the Nurse thinks I am too little to look after the children?" she asked, with changing colour.

Her mother shook her head, and the tears filled her eyes, as she said—

"No, no, dear; it isn't that. But I don't know how to get you the tidy things the Vicar said you would want."

Eliza turned and looked at her sister. "Haven't you got your wages?" she whispered, for her mother had told her there would be no difficulty about the new cotton frocks she would have to buy for her, because Fanny would be able to let her have the money, and they could repay her later. But now, as she looked at her sister's angry, downcast face, she did not know what to think. "The lady didn't pay you, did she, Fan?" she said, with a tremor in her voice, fixing her eyes on her sister's face as she spoke.

"Don't look at me like that! I can't help it! I'm sorry. But I haven't got any money to buy you new frocks, and I don't see—"

She could not say any more, for she heard her father coming in at that moment, and she dashed out of the back door and went through a gap in the hedge, and walked to some fields close by, where she sat down and cried to herself for several minutes. She managed to persuade herself that her mother was very unkind and unreasonable to think she could have all her money to spend upon Eliza, and that she had no right to say what she did about the watch. "I wonder what she would think if she knew I had to pay two pounds for it. She thinks ten shillings a lot of money, and so I shall keep it to myself that I have to pay any more." And Fanny thought she had better go home again and make the best she could of things, or some of the children would be sent to look for her.

Just after she had started to run back, she heard her name called by a familiar voice, and the next minute she was joined by a girl about her own age, but dressed in a dirty-fine frock, and looking altogether so slatternly and untidy that even Fanny was struck with the contrast in their appearance.

"Are you out for your holiday, Fan?" she said, as she slipped her arm in Fanny's.

Fanny knew that neither mother nor father would be pleased to see her with Jessie Collins, and she tried to get away from her as they drew near their own house. But Jessie held her arm tightly.

"I haven't told you half the news yet, Fan!" she exclaimed. "I tell you it is as true as I am here that there'll be work soon for all us girls, and we need not go to service, and I for one am very glad of it."

"Oh, if you get a nice comfortable place, I don't see why—"

Jessie laughed mockingly. "I do though," she said. "And I told mother this morning she needn't bother herself to look for another place for me, for I shall go to work in the blacking factory as soon as ever it opens."

Fanny made a wry face. "I hate the smell of blacking," she said.

"So do I," answered Jessie; "but it isn't so bad when it gives you liberty to go where you like in the evening, and dress how you like, too."

Fanny glanced at her companion and smiled. But just then a voice was heard calling her in a loud tone, and she crept through the hedge again, and came face to face with her brother.

"You've been out with that Jessie Collins, instead of waiting indoors to see me and father," he said accusingly.

"I didn't go out on purpose to see Jessie," replied his sister, in an aggrieved tone. And she ran in to see her father.

"Well, my girl, what made you run off just as I was coming in?" he said.

"Oh, she caught sight of that Jess Collins," announced Jack, who had followed her into the kitchen.

Her father looked from one to the other as Fanny's face flushed angrily.

"Look here, Fanny," he said, "it don't matter just for this once, of course, but it would not be wise to make a friend of Jessie Collins. She is about in the streets too much of a night to please me, and I told her father the other day that no girl of mine should ever be about as Jessie is, and so, to please me, I hope you won't go to meet her again."

"I didn't go to meet her, father," said Fanny, darting an angry look at her brother.

"There, no teasing, Jack," said his father. "Fanny is a visitor to-day, and I hope her first holiday will be a happy one," he said, patting her head. "See what a nice pudding mother has made for dinner, just because her girl was coming home for her first holiday."

If Brown had wondered why Fanny had ran off as she did, he thought it best to say nothing about it just now, and he made room for her to sit beside him, and pushed his own plate aside to make room for her dinner, which had been kept hot in front of the fire by Eliza.