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She was doing the daily task by which she earned her bread, making coarse garments for a neighbouring slop-shop. Fanny had done up the house-work, and put the room into that holiday order which is to the poor what fine furniture and fancy decorations are to the rich. She had fed her canary bird, and talked to it, and read through the last tract left at the door, and she was sitting gazing out of the window, thinking how happy the people must be who rode by in their carriages, and wondering, as she saw dolls, baby-houses and hobby-horses, carried by, where all the children could live who got these fine presents.”There is nobody to send me one,” she thought. As if in answer to her thought, there was a tap at the door, and the well-known liveried footman appeared with a huge paper parcel.

Fanny’s rose-coloured cheek deepened to crimson. Mrs. Hyat surveyed the lad from head to foot, and nodding to Fanny, asked, “Is it he?”

“Yes, aunt.”

“It’s something for you, miss,” said the footman, advancing, and about to deposit a parcel on the table before Mrs. Hyat; “it’s Christmas day, old lady,” he added pertly; “a nice day for young people as has red cheeks and bright eyes.”

“Hum! you need not take the trouble to set that thing down here.”

“We’ll ma’am, here will do just as well,” he said, placing it on the bureau.

“Nor there, either, young man;” but he, without heeding her, had already untied the parcel, and displayed to Fanny’s enraptured eyes a rosewood work-box, with brilliant lining of crimson velvet, and fittings of steel and silver utensils. It was but a single glance that Fanny gave them, for she remembered the goods were contraband, and she averted her eyes and cast them down.

“Tie the thing up, and take it where it came from,” said Mrs. Hyat.”What is your master’s name?”

“The gentleman as employs me is Mr. Nugent Stafford, Esquire.”

“Where does he live?”

“At the
Astor House.”

“Give him the bird, Fanny.”

Poor little Fanny obeyed, but with a trembling hand and tearful eye. The little bird had been a bright spirit in her dead daily life.”Take them all back,” continued Mrs. Hyat, “and tell Mr. What’s-his-name? that such fine things are for fine people: that we are poor and honest, and plain-spoken, and if he is a real friend to us, he’ll leave us to eat the bread of our own earning, without disturbing our minds with things that’s no way suited to us.”

The footman and Fanny stood a little behind Mrs. Hyat, and he taking advantage of her deafness, shrugged his shoulders, saying, “Crusty, crusty”—and adding, with a diabolical prescience fitting the school in which his master bred him, “if ever you hear a whistle under your window, three times repeated, come down.”

“What are you waiting for? you’ve got your message, man.”

“I was waiting for your second thoughts, old lady.”

“I’ve given you my first thoughts, and I’m not one that thinks my thoughts twice over, so you may go to Mr. What-do-you-call-him? as quick as you please.” The man departed, bowing and kissing his hand to Fanny, as he shut the door.”What said the fellow to you?” asked her aunt, who had heard, as deaf people generally hear, what is meant not to reach their ears.

“Oh, aunt,” replied Fanny, “he said something about your being crusty.”

Most unfortunately, and for the first time in her life, she dealt unfairly by her aunt. Sincerity is the compass of life; there is no safe sailing without it. The poor child was perplexed. Stafford’s gifts had charmed her. She did not see clearly why they were rejected. She was already filled with vain longings for some variation of her dull existence; and she was but thirteen years old! Seldom have thirteen years of human life passed with a more stainless record. To do her duty, to be quiet, industrious, and true, from being Fanny’s instinct, had become her habit. The fountain of her affections had never yet been unsealed. Was that well-spring of everlasting life to be poisoned? She had committed her first deceit, poor child!