"Certain--sure--positive. But you must allow me ten per cent."
"I know nothing about percentage; but you may take every scrap that is
over after you have got me the eight pounds."
"Very well, that's a liberal offer," said Carrie. "Now, then, I may as
well take a look at your clothes."
"Oh, it seems such an awful thing to do," said Kitty. "Are you sure,
quite sure, that no one will find it out?"
"Not a bit of it; that is, if you'll be quick and not allow that other
girl--Alice, you call her--to come into the room."
"I'll lock the door," said Kitty. She rushed across the room with new
hope, turned the key, and came back again to Carrie.
"I never heard of anything quite so extraordinary in my life," she said.
"And you--you call yourself a lady?"
"No, I don't; I call myself a good-natured lump of a girl."
"Well, perhaps you are; but to pawn one's things! Do you mean that I
will never see them again?"
"Oh, yes; whenever you like to return the money. They'll be kept safe
enough for you. If you don't return the money, of course, they belong to
the pawnbroker; but you have lots of time to think of that. Look here,
I'll pawn them for a month; that will give you heaps of time to look
round."
"So it will," said Kitty.
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