"Get thee a pen—an'—an' write summat," she ordered.
"Get it quickly," said Rachel Ffrench, "and let me humor her and go."
She noticed the little gap between the words herself, and the next instant saw a faint gray pallor spread itself over the old woman's face.
"Get the pen and paper," she repeated, "and call in the woman."
They brought her the pen and paper and called the woman, who came in stolidly, ready for any emergency. Then they waited for commands, but for several seconds there was a dead pause, and Granny Dixon lay back, staring straight before her.
"Quick!" said Rachel Ffrench. "What do you want?"
Granny Dixon rose by a great effort upright from her pillows. She pointed to Mrs. Briarley with the sharp, bony fore-finger.
"I—leave it—aw—to her," she proclaimed,—"ivvery penny! She's th' ony one among 'em as is na a foo'!"
And then she fell back, and panted and stared again.
Mrs. Briarley lifted her apron and burst into tears.
"She means th' brass," she wailed. "Eh! Poor owd lass, who'd ha' thowt it!"
"Do you mean," asked Rachel Ffrench, "that you wish her to have your money?"
A nod was the answer, and Mrs. Briarley shed sympathetic tears again. Here was a reward for her labors indeed.
What she wrote Miss Ffrench scarcely knew. In the end there was her own name signed below, and a black, scrawling mark from Granny Dixon's hand. The woman who had come in made her mark also.
