It's
hard-earned money, Miss Granger, when all's said and done."
Sophia turned the eyes of reproof upon Mrs. Binks.
"I did not think it was the money you cared for," she said; "I thought it
was the honour you valued most."
She pointed to a card framed and glazed over the mantelpiece--a card upon
which, with many nourishes and fat initial letters in red ink, the model
schoolmaster had recorded the fact, that Mrs. Binks, at the preceding
Christmas distributions, had obtained Miss Granger's annual reward for
domestic cleanliness.
"Well, of course, miss, I set store by the card. It's nice to see one's
name wrote out like that, and any strangers as chance to come in the summer
time, they takes notice; but to a hard-working man's wife two pound is a
consideration. I'm sure I beg your parding humbly, miss, if I spoke a bit
short just now; but it is trying, when one has worked hard, to have one's
work found fault with."
"I am not aware that I found fault with your work, Mrs. Sinks," Sophia
replied with supreme dignity; "I merely remarked that it appeared to have
been done hastily. I don't approve of spasmodic industry."
And with this last crushing remark, Miss Granger sailed out of the cottage,
leaving the luckless Mrs. Binks to repent her presumption at leisure, and
to feel that she had hazarded her hopes of Christmas bounties, and enhanced
the chances of her detested rival of three doors off, Mrs.
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