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 bank. If you will wait here quietly for a moment, I will write you another."

Good Mrs. Brown at first seemed indisposed to allow Prudence to leave the room at all. "Give me my money," she said; " I don't want none o' your cheques. Money down's the thing for me!"

A vast amount of explanation was required before she seemed to grasp the sense of what the unhappy lady was saying. Then she suddenly sat down on a chair and burst into tears, much to Miss Semaphore's alarm and distress.

"You won't try to starve the blessed hinfant," she said, "and rob a pore woman of 'er 'ard earned money?"

Prudence earnestly assured her she would not, that nothing was farther from her intentions. She apologised again and again about the unlucky cheque, and implored her unexpected visitor to be calm, to be patient for one moment while she ran upstairs to fetch her cheque book.

Mrs. Brown, however, followed her to the door, and protested huskily against the younger Miss Semaphore's "giving" her "the slip."

As poor Prudence escaped, she had the