“Go on, child; speak.  ’Tain’t right to keep an old body on tenter-hooks.”

“I will tell you if you will promise me something.  I have brought you a little bag that I made my own self, and you shall have it if you promise me something.  It is a bag for your knitting.  You know you said that you were always losing the ball; it would keep running under your chair, and you could never get it without stooping and hurting yourself.”

“To be sure I did, child, and it is thoughtful of you to think of me.  Well, but we’ll talk of the bag when you have said whatever else you have got at the back of that wise little head of yours.”

“I have got news that may mean a great deal to you, but before I tell it I want you to give me a promise.  I want you to let mother off this month’s installment of her debt.”

“What?” cried Mrs. Church, turning very pale.  “The money that she owes me?”

“Yes, the money she owes you.  A thief came into the shop and took some of her money, and she is very short of money and very worried.  I will tell you the news if you will forgive mother.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Church, “of all the impertinent, bare-faced, wicked little girls, you beat them all.  My answer to that, Susan Hopkins, is no; and you can leave the house, for that is the last word you will get.”

“Thank you, Aunt Church,” said Susy.  “I will leave it.  It doesn’t matter whether you hear the message I have come to give you or not.  It is from Miss Kathleen O’Hara, but that don’t matter, either.  What have you to do with a young lady like Miss Kathleen O’Hara.  She’s as unsuitable to be with you as she is to be with me.  Good-bye, Aunt Church; good-bye.”

Susy got as far as the door when Mrs. Church called her back.

“Come here, you bad little thing,” she said.  “Sit down on that chair.  Now, what do you mean?”

“I say I will give you my message if you will forgive mother.”

“Then I won’t.  I will never hear your message.”

“All right, I will go,” said Susy.  “I’ll tell Miss Kathleen; she will be disappointed, so to speak.  It was about those almshouses, but—­”

“Look here, child; you tell me first, and then I’ll consider.”

“No, no,” said Susy.  “I know something better than that.  You make the promise first, faithfully and truly, and then I will tell you.”

After this there was a considerable wrangle between the old woman and the young girl, but all in good time Susy won her desire, and Mrs. Church made the required promise.

“Now speak,” she said.  “There’s that kettle singing like mad, and it will boil over in a minute.  You shall have a cup of tea and a nice sweet bun with it, and what more can a poor old body like myself offer?  What about Miss Kathleen O’Hara?”

“Aunt Church, you can help Miss Kathleen, and she is worthy of being helped.  She wants you to do something for her.”