bore down all opposition, and a group of charming
old gabled houses -- houses that were little more than
cottages, and therefore perhaps hardly in keeping with
the Market Place of so prosperous a town as was
Witanbury -- had been pulled down, and the large
Stores had risen on their site.

And then one day -- which happened to be a day
when Mrs. Otway and her daughter were away on a
visit -- Manfred Hegner himself walked along into the
Close, and so to the Trellis House, in order to make
Anna a proposal. It was a simple thing that he asked
Anna to do -- namely that she should persuade her
mistress to remove her custom from the long-established
tradesmen where she had always dealt, and
transfer it entirely to his Stores. His things, so he
said, were better as well as cheaper than those sold by
the smaller people, also he would be pleased to pay
Anna a handsome commission on every bill paid by
her mistress.

Anna had willingly fallen in with this plan. It had
taken some time and some trouble, but in the end
Mrs. Otway found it very convenient to get everything
at the same place. For a while all had gone
well for Manfred Hegner -- well for him and well for
Anna. At the end of a year, however, he had arbitrarily
halved Anna's commission, and that she felt
to be (as indeed it was) most unfair, and not in the
bond. She had no longer the power to retaliate, for
her mistress had fallen into the way of going into the
Stores herself. Mrs. Otway enjoyed rubbing up her
German with Mr. Hegner, and the really intelligent
zeal with which he always treated her, and her comparatively
small orders, was very pleasant. Twice

[[47]]

p046 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p047w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p048

v?